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Dante Labs is offering a whole genomes test for $199 this week as an early Black Friday special.

Please note that just as I was getting ready to push the publish button on this article, Veritas Genetics also jumped on the whole sequencing bandwagon for $199 for the first 1000 testers Nov. 19 and 20th. In this article, I discuss the Dante Labs test. I have NOT reviewed Veritas, their test nor terms, so the same cautions discussed below apply to them and any other company offering whole genome sequencing. The Veritas link is here.

Update – Veritas provides the VCF file for an additional $99, but does not provide FASTQ or BAM files, per their Tweet to me.

I have no affiliation with either company.

$199 (US) is actually a great price for a whole genome test, but before you click and purchase, there are some things you need to know about whole genome sequencing (WGS) and what it can and can’t do for you. Or maybe better stated, what you’ll have to do with your own results before you can utilize the information for genealogical purposes.

The four questions you need to ask yourself are:

Why do you want to consider whole genome testing?

What question(s) are you trying to answer?

What information do you seek?

What is your testing goal?

I’m going to say this once now, and I’ll say it again at the end of the article.

Whole genome sequencing tests are NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR GENEALOGICAL DNA TESTS for mitochondrial, Y or autosomal testing. Whole genome sequencing is not a genealogy magic bullet.

There are both pros and cons of this type of purchase, as with most everything. Whole genome tests are for the most experienced and technically savvy genetic genealogists who understand both working with genetics and this field well, who have already taken the vendors’ genealogy tests and are already in the Y, mitochondrial and autosomal comparison data bases.

If that’s you or you’re interested in medical information, you might want to consider a whole genome test.

Let’s start with some basics.

What Is Whole Genome Sequencing?

Whole Genome Sequencing will sequence most of your genome. Keep in mind that humans are more than 99% identical, so the only portions that you’ll care about either medically or genealogically are the portions that differ or tend to mutate. Comparing regions where you match everyone else tells you exactly nothing at all.

Exome Sequencing – A Subset of Whole Genome

Exome sequencing, a subset of whole genome sequencing is utilized for medical testing. The Exome is the region identified as the portions most likely to mutate and that hold medically relevant information. You can read about the benefits and challenges of exome testing here.

I have had my Exome sequenced twice, once at Helix and once at Genos, now owned by NantOmics. Currently, NantOmics does not have a customer sign-in and has acquired my DNA sequence as part of the absorption of Genos. I’ll be writing about that separately. There is always some level of consumer risk in dealing with a startup.

I wrote about Helix here. Helix sequences your Exome (plus) so that you can order a variety of DNA based or personally themed products from their marketplace, although I’m not convinced about the utility of even the legitimacy of some of the available tests, such as the “Wine Explorer.”

On the other hand, the world-class The National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project now utilizes Helix for their testing, as does Spencer Well’s company, Insitome.

Both whole genome and Exome testing are autosomal testing, meaning that they test chromosomes 1-22 (as opposed to Y and mitochondrial DNA) but the number of autosomal locations varies vastly between the various types of tests.

The locations selected by the genealogy testing companies are a subset of both the whole genome and the Exome. The different vendors that compare your DNA for genealogy generally utilize between 600,000 and 900,000 chip-specific locations that they have selected as being inclined to mutate – meaning that we can obtain genealogically relevant information from those mutations.

Some vendors (for example, 23andMe and Ancestry) also include some medical SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) on their chips, as both have formed medical research alliances with various companies.

Whole genome and Exome sequencing includes these same locations, BUT, the whole genome providers don’t compare the files to other testers nor reduce the files to the locations useful for genealogical comparisons. In other words, they don’t create upload files for you.

The following chart is not to scale, but is meant to convey the concept that the Exome is a subset of the whole genome, and the autosomal vendors’ selected SNPs, although not the same between the companies, are all subsets of the Exome and full genome.

I have not had my whole genome sequenced because I have seen no purpose for doing so, outside of curiosity.

This is NOT to imply that you shouldn’t. However, here are some things to think about.

Whole Genome Sequencing Questions

Coverage – Medical grade coverage is considered to be 30X, meaning an average of 30 scans of every targeted location in your genome. Some will have more and some will have less. This means that your DNA is scanned thirty different times to minimize errors. If a read error happens once or twice, it’s unlikely that the same error will happen several more times. You can read about coverage here and here.

Here’s an example where the read length of Read 1 is 18, and the depth of the location shown in light blue is 4, meaning 4 actual reads were obtained. If the goal was 30X, then this result would be very poor. If the goal was 4X then this location is a high quality result for a 4X read.

In the above example, if the reference value, meaning the value at the light blue location for most people is T, then 4 instances of a T means you don’t have a mutation. On the other hand, if T is not the reference value, then 4 instances of T means that a mutation has occurred in that location.

Dante Labs coverage information is provided from their webpage as follows:

Other vendors coverage values will differ, but you should always know what you are purchasing.

Ownership – Who owns your data? What happens to your DNA itself (the sample) and results (the files) under normal circumstances and if the company is sold. Typically, the assets of the company, meaning your information, are included during any acquisition.

Does the company “share, lease or sell” your information as an additional revenue stream with other entities? If so, do they ask your permission each and every time? Do they perform internal medical research and then sell the results? What, if anything, is your DNA going to be used for other than the purpose for which you purchased the test? What control do you exercise over that usage?

Read the terms and conditions carefully for every vendor before purchasing.

File Delivery – Three types of files are generated during a whole genome test.

The VCF (Variant Call Format) which details your locations that are different from the reference file. A reference file is the “normal” value for humans.

A FASTQ file which includes the nucleotide sequence along with a corresponding quality score. Mutations in a messy area or that are not consistent may not be “real” and are considered false positives.

The BAM (Binary Alignment Map) file is used for Y DNA SNP alignment. The output from a BAM file is displayed in Family Tree DNA’s Big Y browser for their customers. Are these files delivered to you? If so, how? Family Tree DNA delivers their Big Y DNA BAM files as free downloads.

Typically whole genome data is too large for a download, so it is sent on a disc drive to you. Dante provides this disc for BAM and FASTQ files for 59 Euro ($69 US) plus shipping. VCF files are available free, but if you’re going to order this product, it would be a shame not to receive everything available.

Version – Discoveries are still being made to the human genome. If you thought we’re all done with that, we’re not. As new regions are mapped successfully, the addresses for the rest change, and a new genomic map is created. Think of this as street addresses and a new cluster of houses is now inserted between existing houses. All of the houses are periodically renumbered.

Today, typically results are delivered in either of two versions: hg19(GRVH37) or hg38(GRCH38). What happens when the next hg (human genome) version is released?

When you test with a vendor who uses your data for comparison as a part of a product they offer, they must realign your data so that the comparison will work for all of their customers (think Family Tree DNA and GedMatch, for example), but a vendor who only offers the testing service has no motivation to realign your output file for you. You only pay for sequencing, not for any after-the-fact services.

Platform – Multiple sequencing platforms are available, and not all platforms are entirely compatible with other competing platforms. For example, the Illumina platform and chips may or may not be compatible with the Affymetrix platform (now Thermo Fisher) and chips. Ask about chip compatibility if you have a specific usage in mind before you purchase.

Location – Where is your DNA actually being sequenced? Are you comfortable having your DNA sent to that geographic location for processing? I’m personally fine with anyplace in either the US, Canada or most of Europe, but other locations maybe not so much. I’d have to evaluate the privacy policies, applicable laws, non-citizen recourse and track record of those countries.

Last but perhaps most important, what do you want to DO with this file/information?

Utilization

What you receive from whole genome sequencing is files. What are you going to do with those files? How can you use them? What is your purpose or goal? How technically skilled are you, and how well do you understand what needs to be done to utilize those files?

A Specific Medical Question

If you have a particular question about a specific medical location, Dante allows you to ask the question as soon as you purchase, but you must know what question to ask as they note below.

You can click on their link to view their report on genetic diseases, but keep in mind, this is the disease you specifically ask about. You will very likely NOT be able to interpret this report without a genetic counselor or physician specializing in this field.

The Dante Labs Health and Wellness Report appears to be a collaborative effort with Sequencing.com and also appears to be included in the purchase price.

I uploaded both my Exome and my autosomal DNA results from the various testing companies (23andMe V3 and V4, Ancestry V1 and V2, Family Tree DNA, LivingDNA, DNA.Land) to Promethease for evaluation and there was very little difference between the health-related information returned based on my Exome data and the autosomal testing vendors. The difference is, of course, that the Exome coverage is much deeper (and therefore more reliable) because that test is a medical test, not a consumer genealogy test and more locations are covered. Whole genome testing would be more complete.

I wrote about Promethease here and here. Promethease does accept VCF files from various vendors who provide whole genome testing.

None of these tests are designed or meant for medical interpretation by non-professionals.

Medical Testing

If you plan to test with the idea that should your physician need a genetics test, you’re already ahead of the curve, don’t be so sure. It’s likely that your physician will want a genetics test using the latest technology, from their own lab, where they understand the quality measures in place as well as how the data is presented to them. They are unlikely to accept a test from any other source. I know, because I’ve already had this experience.

Genealogical Comparisons

The power of DNA testing for genealogy is comparing your data to others. Testing in isolation is not useful.

Mitochondrial DNA – I can’t tell for sure based on the sample reports, but it appears that you receive your full sequence haplogroup and probably your mutations as well from Dante. They don’t say which version of mitochondrial DNA they utilize.

However, without the ability to compare to other testers in a database, what genealogical benefit can you derive from this information?

Furthermore, mitochondrial DNA also has “versions,” and converting from an older to a newer version is anything but trivial. Haplogroups are renamed and branches sawed from one part of the mitochondrial haplotree and grafted onto another. A testing (only) vendor that does not provide comparisons has absolutely no reason to update your results and can’t be expected to do so. V17 is the current build, released in February 2016, with the earlier version history here.

Family Tree DNA is the only vendor who tests your full sequence mitochondrial DNA, compares it to other testers and updates your results when a new version is released. You can read more about this process, here and how to work with mtDNA results here.

Y DNA – Dante Labs provides BAM files, but other whole genome sequencers may not. Check before you purchase if you are interested in Y DNA. Again, you’ll need to be able to analyze the results and submit them for comparison. If you are not capable of doing that, you’ll need to pay a third party like either YFull or FGS (Full Genome Sequencing) or take the Big Y test at Family Tree DNA who has the largest Y Database worldwide and compares results.

Typically whole genome testers are looking for Y DNA SNPs, not STR values in BAM files. STR (short tandem repeat) values are the results that you receive when you purchase the 37, 67 or 111 tests at Family Tree DNA, as compared to the Big Y test which provides you with SNPs in order to resolve your haplogroup at the most granular level possible. You can read about the difference between SNPs and STRs here.

As with SNP data, you’ll need outside assistance to extract your STR information from the whole genome sequence information, none of which will be able to be compared with the testers in the Family Tree DNA data base. There is also an issue of copy-count standardization between vendors.

Autosomal DNA – None of the major providers that accept transfers (MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA, GedMatch) accept whole genome files. You would need to find a methodology of reducing the files from the whole genome to the autosomal SNPs accepted by the various vendors. If the vendors adopt the digital signature technology recently proposed in this paper by Yaniv Erlich et al to prevent “spoofed files,” modified files won’t be accepted by vendors.

Summary

Whole genome testing, in general, will and won’t provide you with the following:

Desired Feature

Whole Genome Testing

Mitochondrial DNA

Presumed full haplogroup and mutations provided, but no ability for comparison to other testers. Upload to Family Tree DNA, the only vendor doing comparisons not available.

Y DNA

Presume Y chromosome mostly covered, but limited ability for comparison to other testers for either SNPs or STRs. Must utilize either YFull or FGS for SNP/STR analysis. Upload to Family Tree DNA, the vendor with the largest data base not available when testing elsewhere.

Autosomal DNA for genealogy

Presume all SNPs covered, but file output needs to be reduced to SNPs offered/processed by vendors accepting transfers (Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, GedMatch) and converted to their file formats. Modified files may not be accepted in the future.

Medical (consumer interest)

Accuracy is a factor of targeted coverage rate and depth of actual reads. Whole genome vendors may or may not provide any analysis or reports. Dante does but for limited number of conditions. Promethease accepts VCF files from vendors and provides more.

Medical (physician accepted)

Physician is likely to order a medical genetics test through their own institution. Physicians may not be willing to risk a misdiagnosis due to a factor outside of their control such as an incompatible human genome version.

Files

VCF, FASTQ and BAM may or may not be included with results, and may or may not be free.

Coverage

Coverage and depth may or may not be adequate. Multiple extractions (from multiple samples) may or may not be included with the initial purchase (if needed) or may be limited. Ask.

Updates

Vendors who offer sequencing as a part of a products that include comparison to other testers will update your results version to the current reference version, such as hg38 and mitochondrial V17. Others do not, nor can they be expected to provide that service.

Version

Inquire as to the human genome (hg) version or versions available to you, and which version(s) are acceptable to the third party vendors you wish to utilize. When the next version of the human genome is released, your file will no longer be compatible because WGS vendors are offering sequencing only, not results comparisons to databases for genealogy.

Ownership/Usage

Who owns your sample? What will it be utilized for, other than the service you ordered, by whom and for what purposes? Will you we able to authorize or decline each usage?

Location

Where geographically is your DNA actually being sequenced and stored? What happens to your actual DNA sample itself and the resulting files? This may not be the location where you return your swab kit.

The Question – Will I Order?

The bottom line is that if you are a genealogist, seeking genetic information for genealogical purposes, you’re much better off to test with the standard and well know genealogy vendors who offer compatibility and comparisons to other testers.

If you are a pioneer in this field, have the technical ability required to make use of a whole genome test and are willing to push the envelope, then perhaps whole genome sequencing is for you.

I am considering ordering the Dante Labs whole genome test out of simple curiosity and to upload to Promethease to determine if the whole genome test provides me with something potentially medically relevant (positive or negative) that autosomal and Exome testing did not.

I’m truly undecided. Somehow, I’m having trouble parting with the $199 plus $69 (hard drive delivery by request when ordering) plus shipping for this limited functionality. If I was a novice genetic genealogist or was not a technology expert, I would definitely NOT order this test for the reasons mentioned above.

A whole genome test is not in any way a genealogical replacement for a full sequence mitochondrial test, a Y STR test, a Y SNP test or an autosomal test along with respective comparison(s) in the data bases of vendors who don’t allow uploads for these various functions.

The simple fact that 30X whole genome testing is available for $199 plus $69 plus shipping is amazing, given that 15 years ago that same test cost 2.7 billion dollars. However, it’s still not the magic bullet for genealogy – at least, not yet.

Today, the necessary integration simply doesn’t exist. You pay the genealogy vendors not just for the basic sequencing, but for the additional matching and maintenance of their data bases, not to mention the upgrading of your sequence as needed over time.

If I had to choose between spending the money for the WGS test or taking the genealogy tests, hands down, I’d take the genealogy tests because of the comparisons available. Comparison and collaboration is absolutely crucial for genealogy. A raw data file buys me nothing genealogically.

If I had not previously taken an Exome test, I would order this test in order to obtain the free Dante Health and Wellness Report which provides limited reporting and to upload my raw data file to Promethease. The price is certainly right.

However, keep in mind that once you view health information, you cannot un-see it, so be sure you do really want to know.

What do you plan to do? Are you going to order a whole genome test?

_____________________________________________________________________

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

A signature is defined as a mark or something that personally identifies an individual. A form of undeniable self-identification.

Of course, that’s exactly why I seek my ancestors’ signatures, both their handwriting and their genetic signature.

Jacob Lentz was born in Germany in 1783 and died in 1870 in Ohio.

Most documents of that timeframe contained only facsimiles of actual signatures. Original deeds indicate that the document was signed, but when recorded in deed books at the courthouse, the clerk only transcribed the signature. The person recorded the physical deed that they had in their hand, and then took it home with them. Therefore, the deed book doesn’t hold the original signature – the original deed does. I was crestfallen years ago when I discovered that fact. ☹

Hence, the actual physical signature of an ancestor is rare indeed.

Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to find not one, but two actual signatures of Jacob Lentz – plus part of his genetic signature as well.

Jacob’s Handwritten Signatures

When Jacob Lenz, later Lentz in the US, petitioned to leave Germany in 1817, he signed the petition document.

The original document is in the “Weinstadt City Archive”, which kindly gave permission for the reproduction and was graciously retrieved by my distant cousin, Niclas Witt. Thank you very much to both!

Here’s Jacob’s actual signature.

The story of Jacob’s life and immigration, and what a story it is, is recorded here, here, here and here.

Jacob’s life has a missing decade or so, after he completed his indentured servitude about 1820 or 1821 in Pennsylvania and before he arrived in Montgomery County, Ohio about 1830. In Ohio, he purchased land and began creating records. That’s where I found him initially.

Jacob’s youngest child, Mary Lentz, was born in May or June of 1829, before leaving Pennsylvania. She married in Montgomery County, Ohio on December 19, 1848 to Henry Overlease. That marriage document contains the signature of her father, Jacob Lentz.

This signature is slightly different than the German one from 31 years earlier, but it’s still clearly our Jacob, as the document states that the parents have signed. It looks like he’s also incorporated the “t” into the name now as well.

Jacob Lentz’s Genetic Signatures

As I was celebrating the discovery of not one, but two versions of Jacob’s written signature, I realized that I carry part of Jacob’s genetic signature too, as do others of his descendants. I just never thought of it quite like that before.

His genetic signature is every bit as personal, and even better because it’s in me, not lost to time.

There are three types of DNA that can provide genetic signatures of our ancestors; mitochondrial, Y DNA and autosomal.

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to all genders of their children, but only their daughters pass it on. Therefore, it’s primarily unchanged, generation to generation.

Being a male, Jacob couldn’t pass his mitochondrial DNA on to his descendants, so we have to discover Jacob’s mitochondrial DNA by testing someone else who descends from his mother’s direct matrilineal line through all females but can be a male in the current generation.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to discover Jacob’s mitochondrial DNA that he inherited from his matrilineal line, meaning his mother’s mother’s mother’s line.

However, we only identified his parents a few months ago. Most of Jacob’s family didn’t immigrate, so perhaps eventually the right person will test who descends from his mother, or her matrilineal line, through all women to the current generation.

Jacob’s matrilineal line is as follows, beginning with his mother:

Jacob’s mother – Maria Margaretha Gribler born May 4, 1749 and died July 5, 1823 in Beutelsbach, married Jakob Lenz November 3, 1772.

Her mother, Katharina Nopp born April 23, 1707 and died November 27, 1764 in Beutelsbach, married Johann Georg Gribler on October 26, 1745.

Agnes Back/Beck born November 26, 1673 in Aichelberg, Germany, died February 10, 1752 in Beutelsbach and married Johann Georg Nopp from Beutelsbach.

Margaretha, surname unknown, from Magstadt who married Dionysus Beck who lived in Aichelberg, Germany.

If you descend from any of these women, or their female siblings through all females to the current generation, I have a DNA testing scholarship for mitochondrial DNA at Family Tree DNA for you! I’ll throw an autosomal Family Finder test in too!

If you’d like a read a quick article about how mitochondrial, Y DNA and autosomal DNA work and are inherited, click here.

Y-DNA

On the other hand, Jacob did contribute his Y DNA to his sons. Lentz male descendants, presuming no adoptions, carry Jacob’s Y DNA signature as their own.

We are very fortunate to have Jacob Lentz’s Y DNA signature, thanks to two male Lentz cousins. I wrote about how unique the Lentz Y DNA is, and that we’ve determined that our Lentz line descends from the Yamnaya culture in Russia some 3500 years ago. How did we do that? We match one of the ancient burials. Jacob’s haplogroup is R-BY39280 which is a shorthand way of telling us about his clan.

On the Big Y Tree, at Family Tree DNA, we can see that on our BY39280 branch, we have people whose distant ancestors were found in two locations, France and Germany. On the next upstream branch, KMS67, the parent of BY39280, we find people with that haplogroup in Switzerland and Greece.

Our ancestors are amazingly interesting.

Autosomal DNA

Jacob shares his Y and mitochondrial DNA, probably exactly, with other relatives, since both Y and mitochondrial DNA is passed intact from generation to generation, except for an occasional mutation.

However, Jacob’s autosomal DNA was the result of a precise combination of half of his mother’s and half of his father’s autosomal DNA. No one on this earth had the exact combination of DNA as Jacob. Therefore, Jacob’s autosomal DNA identifies him uniquely.

Unfortunately, Jacob isn’t alive to test, and no, I’m not digging him up – so we are left to piece together Jacob’s genetic signature from the pieces distributed among his descendants.

I realized that by utilizing DNAPainter, which allows me to track my own segments by ancestor, I have reconstructed a small portion of Jacob’s autosomal DNA.

Now, there’s a hitch, of course.

Given that there are no testers that descend from the ancestors of either Jacob or his wife, Fredericka Ruhle, at least not that I know of, I can’t sort out which of these segments are actually Jacob’s and which are Fredericka’s.

In the chart above, the tester and my mother match each other on the same segments, but without testers who descend from the parents of Jacob and Fredericka, through other children and also match on that same segment, we can’t tell which of those common segments came from Jacob and which from Fredericka. If my mother and the tester matched a tester from Jacob’s siblings, then we would know that their common segment descended through Jacob’s line, for example.

Painting Jacob’s Genetic Signature

The segments in pink below show DNA that I inherited from either Jacob or Fredericka. I match 8 other cousins who descend from Jacob Lentz and Fredericka Ruhle on some portion of my DNA – and in many cases, three or more descendants of Jacob/Fredericka match on the same exact segment, meaning they are triangulated.

As you can see, I inherited a significant portion of my maternal chromosome 3 from Jacob or Fredericka, as did my cousins. I also inherited portions of chromosomes 7, 9, 18 and 22 from Jacob or Fredericka as well. While I was initially surprised to see such a big piece of chromosome three descending from Jacob/Fredericka, Jacob Lentz and Fredericka Ruhle aren’t really that distantly removed – being my great-great-great-grandparents, or 5 generations back in time.

Based on the DNAPainter calculations, these segments represent about 2.4% of my DNA segments on my maternal side. The expected amount, if the DNA actually was passed in exactly half (which seldom happens,) would be approximately 3.125% for each Jacob and Fredericka, or 6.25% combined. That means I probably carry more of Jacob/Fredericka’s DNA that can eventually be identified by new cousin matches!

Of course, my cousins may well share segments of Jacob’s DNA with each other that I don’t, so those segments won’t be shown on my DNAPainter graph.

However, if we were to create a DNAPainter chart for Jacob/Fredericka themseves, and their descendants were to map their shared segments to that chart, we could eventually recreate a significant amount of Jacob’s genetic signature through the combined efforts of his descendants – like reassembling a big puzzle where we all possess different pieces of the puzzle.

Portions of Jacob’s genetic signature are in each of his descendants, at least for several generations! Reassembling Jacob would be he ultimate scavenger hunt.

You can order autosomal tests from either Family Tree DNA or MyHeritage by clicking on those names in this sentence. You’ll need segment information that isn’t available at Ancestry, so I recommend testing with one of these two companies.

23andMe and Gedmatch also provide segment information. Some people who test at both 23andMe and Ancestry upload to GedMatch, so be sure to check there as well.

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

Since ethnicity results have been in the news recently, I thought this might be a good time to talk about how to squeeze more out of your ethnicity results than just percentages.

You do know there’s more, right? You can tell a lot more about where your ethnicity came from by who you match, and how. Vendors provide that information too, but you need to know where to look. Plus, I have some tips about how to use this information effectively.

Genealogists are always trying to squeeze every last drop of information out of every DNA test, so I’d like to illustrate how I use ethnicity in combination with shared matches at Ancestry, Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage and 23andMe. Each vendor has a few unique features and tools as well, plus people in their databases that other vendors don’t have.

At Ancestry, I have a V1 (older) and a V2 (newer) test, so I’m comparing my own V1 to my own V2 test for purposes of illustration.

To start, click on DNA Matches. You’ll see a new blue compare button, beneath the green View Match button, at right.

Clink on any image to enlarge

Click on the blue Compare button. You’ll see a side by side display, shown below.

My V1, at left, compared to my V2 test, at right. My V2 test results do not have a photo uploaded, so you just see my initials. It’s interesting to note that even though these are both me, just tested on different chips, that my ethnicity doesn’t match exactly, although it’s mighty close.

Next, you’ll see the shared migrations between the two people being compared. This helps determine where your common ancestor might be found.

Last, you’ll see the shared matches between you and the other person. This means that those people match both you and the person you’re comparing against, suggesting a potential common ancestor.

On your matches page, you can also sort your matches by your regions.

Where Did Your Ethnicity Come From?

Ethnicity comparisons can be helpful, especially if you’re a person who carries DNA from different continents. I do not suggest trying to compare intra-continental estimates in the same way. It’s simply too difficult for vendors to separate DNA from locations that all border each other where countries are the size of states in the US, such as the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland for example.

As I’ve said before, ethnicity results are only estimates, but they are relatively accurate at the continental level, plus Jewish, as illustrated below.

To be specific, these regions are the easiest for vendors to tell apart from the other regions:

European

African

Native American (North American, South American, Central American and Siberian in conjunction with the Americas)

Asian

Jewish

For example, if you are 30% African, 35% Native American and 35% European, you could use this information to form a hypothesis about how you match a particular individual or group of individuals.

If the person you match is 50% Asian and 50% African, it’s most likely that the region you match them on is the common African side.

Of course, the next step would be to look at the shared matches to see if those matches include your known relatives with African heritage. This is one reason I always encourage testing of relatives. Who you and your known relative both match tells you a lot about where the common ancestor of a matching group of individuals is found in your tree. For example, if someone matches you and a first cousin, then the common ancestor of the three people is on the side of your tree that you share with the first cousin.

Not exactly sure, or dealing with smaller amounts of continental ethnicity? There’s another way to work with ethnicity.

Ethnicity Match Chart

Make an Ethnicity Match Chart that includes the ethnicity of each person in the match group, as follows.

In this example, the only category in which all people fall is African, so that’s where I’d look in my tree first for a family connection.

Keep in mind that you match person 1, and people 2-4 match both you and person 1.

That does NOT mean that:

Person 2, 3 or 4 match each other.

Any of those people share the same ancestor with each other. Yes, you can match due to different ancestors that might not have anything to do with each other.

These people match on any of the same segments. You can’t view segments at Ancestry. You’ll have to transfer your results to Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage or GedMatch to do that.

Next, look at the trees for each person in the common match group and see if you can discern any common genealogy or even common geography. The best hints of course, at Ancestry, are those green leaf Shared Ancestor Hints. If you find a common ancestor or line, you’re well on your way to identifying how those people are related to you and potentially your match as well.

You could also use this methodology as an adaptation of or in tandem with the Leeds Method that I wrote about here.

Comparing Segments – Yes, You’ll Need To

Ancestry doesn’t offer a chromosome browser, but Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe and GedMatch all do, allowing you to view segments and triangulate. I always suggest uploading Ancestry results to GedMatch, Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage. 23andMe does not accept uploads.

Each vendor offers their own version of ethnicity comparison. All vendors offer in common with (ICW) and shared match tools too, so you can create your Ethnicity Match Chart for a specific group of people from any vendor’s results – although I don’t mix vendor results on one chart. Plus, every vendor has people in their matching database that no other vendor has, so fish in every pond.

Family Tree DNA

Family Tree DNA offers shared ethnicity information on the myOrigins map. To view, click on MyOrigins, then on View MyOrigins Map.

Testers who opt in can view their ethnicity as compared to their matches’ ethnicity. You can also sort by ethnicity as well as use the pin function at bottom right to drop Y and mtDNA most distant ancestor pins on the map.

Please note that this is NOT where your match lives, but is the location of their most distant matrilineal (mtDNA) or patrilineal (surname) known individual.

If you’re looking for Native American matches, for example, you might look for someone with some percentage of Native American autosomal DNA and/or Native American Y or mitochondrial haplogroups. Click on any pin to view that person and their ethnicity that matches yours. You can also search for a specific individual to see how your ethnicity lines up.

On your match list, look for common surnames with those matches, see who you match in common and check your matches’ trees.

Linking your DNA matches to their location in your tree enables you to participate in Phased Family Matching, meaning you can then select people that are assigned to your maternal or paternal sides to view in the chromosome browser.

When viewing all maternal (red icon) or all paternal (blue icon) matches together on the chromosome browser, the segments are automatically mathematically triangulated. All you need to do is identify the common ancestor!

I love Phased Family Matches. Family Tree DNA is the only vendor to offer this feature and to incorporate Y and mitochondrial DNA.

MyHeritage

MyHeritage provides multiple avenues for comparison, allowing users to select matches by their ethnicity, country or to simply compare their ethnicity to each other. To view matches by ethnicity, click on the Filter button, but note that not all ethnicity locations are included. You can also combine options, such as looking for anyone from the Netherlands with Nigerian DNA.

To view your matches ethnicity as compared to yours, click on the match and scroll down.

Look for people you match in common as well as the triangulation icon, shown at right, below. Another feature, SmartMatches (a filter option) sort for people who have common ancestors with you in trees.

I love triangulation and DNA SmartMatches and MyHeritage is the only vendor to offer this combination of tools!

23andMe

At 23andMe, you can see your ethnicity beside that of your match by clicking on DNA Relatives, on the Ancestry tab, then click on the person you wish to compare to. In my case, I’ve also taken the V3 and V4 test at 23andMe, so I’m comparing to myself.

At 23andMe, you can view which portions of your segments are attributed to which ethnicity. Under the Ancestry tab, click Ancestry Composition and scroll down to view your Ancestry Composition Chromosome Painting.

You can see my Native American segments on chromosomes 1 and 2.

Click on Scientific Details, then scroll to the bottom to download your ethnicity raw data that includes the segment detail for the location of those specific segments.

Utilizing these chromosome and segment locations with any other vendor who supports a chromosome browser, and determining which side that ethnicity descends through allows you to identify matches who should also carry segments of that same ethnicity at that same location.

Here’s my Native segment on chromosome 2 from the download file. Remember, you have two copies of every chromosome – and in my case, only one of those copies on Chromosome 2 is Native. I know it’s from my mother, so anyone matching me on my maternal side at this location on chromosome 2 should also have a Native segment, and our common ancestor is the source of our common Native American heritage.

23andMe is the only vendor to identify ethnicity segments.

23andMe does show matches in common and common matching segments on the chromosome browser, but they don’t support trees.

Your Turn!

If you carry ethnicity from multiple continents (plus Jewish), what hints can you derive from using your ethnicity as a match tool?

_____________________________________________________________________

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

On September 27th, 2018 Family Tree DNA published the largest Y haplotree in the world, based on SNP tests taken by customers. Now, less than two weeks later, they’ve added an exhaustive mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) public haplotree as well, making this information universally available to everyone.

Family Tree DNA’s mtDNA Haplotree is based on the latest version of the mtDNA Phylotree. The new Family Tree DNA tree includes 5,434 branches derived from more than 150,000 full sequence results from 180+ different countries of origin. Family Tree DNA‘s tree has SIX TIMES more samples than the Phylotree. Furthermore, Family Tree DNA only includes full sequence results, where Phylotree includes partial results.

This new tree is a goldmine! What does it provide that that’s unique? Locations – lots of locations!

The Official Phylotree

Unlike the Y DNA tree, which is literally defined and constructed by the genetic community, new mitochondrial DNA branches cannot be added to the official mitochondrial Phylotree by Family Tree DNA. Haplogroups, meaning new branches in the form of SNPs are added to the Y tree as new SNPs are discovered and inserted into the tree in their proper location. The mitochondrial DNA phylotree can’t be expanded by a vendor in that manner.

The official mitochondrial Phylotree is maintained at www.phylotree.org and is episodically updated. The most recent version was mtDNA tree build 17, published and updated in February 2016. You can view version history here.

Mitochondrial Phylogenic Tree Version 17

Version 17 of the official mitochondrial tree consists of approximately 5,400 nodes, or branches with a total of 24,275 samples uploaded by both private individuals and academic researchers which are then utilized to define haplogroup branches.

Individuals can upload their own full sequence results from Family Tree DNA, but they must be in a specific format. I keep meaning to write detailed instructions about how to submit your full sequence test results, but so far, that has repeatedly slipped off of the schedule. I’ll try to do this soon.

In a nutshell, download your FASTA file from Family Tree DNA and continue with the submission process here. The instructions are below the submission box, so scroll down.

In any case, the way that new branches are added to the phylotree is when enough new results with a specific mutation are submitted and evaluated, the tree will have a new branch added in the next version. That magic number of individuals with the same mutation was 3 in the past, but now that so many more people are testing, I’m not sure if that number holds, or if it should. Spontaneous mutations can and do happen at the same location. The Phylotree branches mean that the haplogroup defining mutations indicate a common ancestor, not de novo separate mutations. That’s why analysis has to be completed on each candidate branch.

How do Mitochondrial DNA Branches Work?

If you are a member of haplogroup J1c2f today, and a certain number of people in that haplogroup have another common mutation, that new mutation may be assigned the designation of 1, as in J1c2f1, where anyone in haplogroup J1c2f who has that mutation will be assigned to J1c2f1.

While the alternating letter/number format is very easy to follow, some problems and challenges do exist with the alternating letter/number haplogroup naming system.

The Name of the Game

The letter number system works fine if not many new branches are added, branches don’t shuffle and if the growth is slow. However, that’s not the case anymore.

If you recall, back in July of 2012, which is equivalent to the genetic dark ages (I know, right), the Y tree was also represented with the same type of letter number terminology used on the mitochondrial tree today.

For example, Y DNA haplogroup R-M269 was known as R1b1a2, and before that the same haplogroup was known as R1b1c. The changes occurred because so many new haplgroups were being discovered that a new sprout wasn’t added from time to time, but entire branches had to be sawed off and either discarded or grafted elsewhere. It became obvious that while the R1b1a2 version was nice, because it was visually obvious that R1b1a2a was just one step below R1b1a2, that long term, that format just wasn’t going to be able to work anymore. New branches weren’t just sprouting, wholesale shuffling was occurring. Believe it or not, we’re still on the frontier of genetic science.

In 2012, the change to the SNP based haplogroup designations was introduced by Family Tree DNA, and adopted within the community.

The ISOGG tree, the only tree that still includes the older letter/number system and creates extended letter number haplogroup names as new SNPs are added provides us with an example of how much the Y tree has grown.

You can see that the letter/number format haplogroups to the far right are 19 locations in length. The assigned SNP or SNPs associated with that haplogroup are shown as well. Those 19-digit haplogroup names are just too unwieldy, and new haplogroups are still being discovered daily.

It’s 2012 All Over Again

That’s where we are with mitochondrial DNA today, but unlike Y DNA naming, a vendor can’t just make that change to a terminal SNP based naming system because all vendors conform to the published Phylotree.

However, in this case, the vendor, Family Tree DNA has more than 6 times the number of full sequence mitochondrial results than the mitochondrial reference model Phylotree. If you look at the haplogroup projects at Family Tree DNA, you’ll notice that (some) administrators routinely group results by a specific mutation that is found within a named haplogroup, meaning that the people with the mutation form a subgroup that they believe is worthy of its own haplogroup subgroup name. The problem is that unless enough people upload their results to Phylotree, that subgroup will never be identified, so a new haplogroup won’t be added.

If the entire Family Tree DNA data base were to be uploaded to Phylotree, can you imagine how many new haplogroups would need to be formed? Of course, Family Tree DNA can’t do that, but individual testers can and should.

Challenges for Vendors

The challenge for vendors is that every time the phylotree tree is updated and a new version is produced, the vendors must “rerun” their existing tester samples against the new haplogroup defining mutations to update their testers’ haplogroup results.

In some cases, entire haplogroups are obsoleted and branches moved, so it’s not a simple matter of just adding a single letter or digit. Rearranging occurs, and will occur more and more, the more tests that are uploaded to Phylotree.

For example, in the Phylotree V17 update, haplogroup A4a1 became A1a. In other words, some haplogroups became entirely obsolete and were inserted onto other branches of the tree.

In the current version of the Phylotree, haplogroup A4 has been retired.

Keep in mind that all haplogroup assignments are the cumulative combination of all of the upstream direct haplogroups. That means that haplogroup A4a1, in the prior version, had all of the haplogroup defining mutations shown in bold in the chart below. In the V17 version, haplogroup A1a contains all of the mutations shown in bold red. You might notice that the haplogroup A4 defining mutation T16362C is no longer included, and haplogroup A4, plus all 9 downstream haplogroups which were previously dependent on T16362C have been retired. A4a1 is now A1a.

Taking a look at the mitochondrial tree in pedigree fashion, we can see haplogroup A4a1 in Build 15 from September 2012, below.

Followed by haplogroup A1a in the current Build 17.

Full Sequence Versus Chip Based Mitochondrial Testing

While Family Tree DNA tests the full sequence of their customers who purchase that level of testing, other vendors don’t, and these changes wreak havoc for those vendors, and for compatibility for customer attempting to compare between data bases and information from different vendors.

That means that without knowing which version of Phylotree a vendor currently uses, you may not be able to compare meaningfully with another user, depending on changes that occurred that haplogroup between versions. You also need to know which vendor each person utilized for testing and if that vendor’s mitochondrial results are generated from an autosomal style chip or are actually a full mitochondrial sequence test. Utilizing the ISOGG mtDNA testing comparison chart, here’s a cheat sheet.

Vendor

No Mitochondrial

Chip based haplogroup only mitochondrial

Full Sequence mitochondrial

Family Tree DNA

No

Yes – V17

23andMe

Yes – Build V7

No

Ancestry

None

LivingDNA

Yes – Build V17

No

MyHeritage

None

Genographic V2

Yes – Build V16

No

Of the chip-based vendors, 23andMe is the most out of date, with V7 extending back to November of 2009. The Genographic Project has done the best job of updating from previous versions. LivingDNA entered the marketplace in 2016, utilizing V17 when they began.

Family Tree DNA’s mitochondrial test is not autosomal chip based, so they don’t encounter the problem of not having tested needed locations because they test all locations. They have upgraded their customers several times over the years, with the current version being V17.

Family Tree DNA’s mitochondrial DNA test is a separate test from their Family Finder autosomal test while the chip-based vendors provide a base-level haplogroup designation that is included in their autosomal product. However, for chip-based vendors, updating that information can be very challenging, especially when significant branch changes occur.

SNP based mitochondrial and Y DNA testing for basic haplogroups that some vendors include with autosomal DNA is a mixed blessing. The up side, you receive a basic haplogroup. The down aide, the vendor doesn’t test anyplace near all of the 16,569 mitochondrial DNA SNP locations.

Let’s say that a vendor tests approximately 4000 mitochondrial DNA SNPs on the autosomal chip that you submit for autosomal DNA testing. First, that’s 4000 locations they can’t use for autosomal SNPs, because a DNA chip has a finite number of locations that can be utilized.

Secondly, and more importantly, it’s devilishly difficult to “predict” haplogroups at a detailed level correctly. Therefore, some customers receive a partial haplogroup, such as J1c, and some receive more detail.

It’s even more difficult, sometimes impossible, to update haplogroups when new Phylotree versions are released.

Why is Haplogroup Prediction and Updating so Difficult?

The full mitochondrial DNA sequence is 16,569 locations in length, plus or minus insertions and deletions. The full sequence test does exactly what that name implies, tests every single location.

Now, let’s say, by way of example, that location 10,000 isn’t used to determine any haplogroup today, so the chip-based vendors don’t test it. They only have room for 4000 of those locations on their chip, so they must use them wisely. They aren’t about to waste one of those 4000 spaces on a location that isn’t utilized in haplogroup determination.

Let’s say in the next release, V2, that location 10,000 is now used for just one haplogroup definition, but the haplogroup assignment still works without it. In other words, previously to define that haplogroup, location 9000 was used, and now a specific value at location 10,000 has been added. Assuming you have the correct value at 9,000, you’re still golden, even if the vendor doesn’t test location 10,000. No problem.

However, in V3, now there are new haplogroup subgroups in two different branches that use location 10,000 as a terminal SNP. A terminal SNP is the last SNP in line that define your results most granularly. In haplogroup J1c2f, the SNP(s) that define the f are my terminal SNPs. But if the vendor doesn’t test location 10,000, then the mutation there can’t be used to determine my terminal SNP, and my full haplogroup will be incomplete. What now?

If location 10,000 isn’t tested, the vendor can’t assign those new haplogroups, and if any other haplogroup branch is dependent on this SNP location, they can’t be assigned correctly either. Changes between releases are cumulative, so the more new releases, the further behind the haplogroup designations become.

Multiple problems exist:

Even if those vendors were to recalculate their customer’s results to update haplogroups, they can’t report on locations they never tested, so their haplogroup assignments become increasingly outdated.

To update your haplogroup when new locations need to be tested, the vendor would have to actually rerun your actual DNA test itself, NOT just update your results in the data base. They can’t update results for locations they didn’t test.

Without running the full mitochondrial sequence, the haplogroup can never be more current than the locations on the vendor’s chip at the time the actual DNA test is run.

No vendor runs a full sequence test on an autosomal chip. A full mitochondrial sequence test at Family Tree DNA is required for that.

Furthermore, results matching can’t be performed without the type of test performed at Family Tree DNA, because people carry mutations other than haplogroup defining mutations. Haplogroup only information is entertaining and can sometimes provide you with base information about the origins of your ancestor (Native, African, European, Asian,) but quickly loses its appeal because it’s not specific, can’t be used for matching and can’t reliably be upgraded.

The lack of complete testing also means that while Family Tree DNA can publish this type of tree and contribute to science, the other vendors can’t.

To view the tree, click here, but do NOT sign in to your account. Simply scroll to the bottom of the page where you will see the options for both the Y DNA Haplotree and the mtDNA Haplotree under the Community heading.

Click on mtDNA Haplotree.

If you are a Family Tree DNA customer, you can view both the Y and mitochondrial trees from your personal page as well. You don’t have to have taken either the Y or mitochondrial DNA tests to view the trees.

Browsing the mtDNA Tree

Across the top, you’ll see the major haplogroups.

I’m using haplogroup M as an example, because it’s far up the tree and has lots of subgroups. Only full sequence results are shown on the tree.

You can view the tree in two formats, countries or variants, in the upper left-hand corner. View is not the same thing as search.

When viewing the mitochondrial DNA phylotree by country, we see that haplogroup M has a total of 1339 entries, which means M and everything below M on the tree.

However, the flags showing in the M row are only for people whose full mitochondrial sequence puts them into M directly, with no subgroup.

As you can see, there are only 12: 6 people in Australia, and one in 5 other countries. These are the locations of the most distant known ancestor of those testers. If they have not completed the maternal Country of Origin on the Earliest Known Ancestor tab, nothing shows for the location.

Viewing the tree by variant shows the haplogroup defining mutations, but NOT any individual mutations beyond those that are haplogroup defining.

For each haplogroup, click on the three dots to the right to display the country report for that haplogroup.

The Country Report

The Country Report provides three columns.

The column titled Branch Participants M shows only the total of people in haplogroup M itself, with no upstream or downstream results, meaning excluding M1, M2, etc. Just the individuals in M itself. Be sure to note that there may be multiple pages to click through, at bottom right.

The second column, Downstream Participants – M and Downstream (Excluding other Letters) means the people in haplogroup M and M subclades. You may wonder why this column is included, but realize that branches of haplogroup M include haplogroups G, Q, C, Z, D and E. The middle column only includes M and subgroups that begin with M, without the others, meaning M, M10, M11 but not G, Q, etc.

Of course the final column, All Downstream Participants – M and Downstream (Including other Letters) shows all of the haplogroup M participants, meaning M and all subclades, including all other haplogroups beneath M, such as M10, G, Q, etc..

What Can I Do with This Information?

Unlike the companion Y tree DNA, since surnames change every generation for maternal lineages, there is no requirement to have multiple matching surnames on a branch to be displayed.

Therefore, every person who includes a location for a most distant known ancestor is included in the tree, but surnames are not.

I want to see, at a glance, where the other people in my haplogroup, and the haplogroups that are the “direct ancestral line” of mine are found today. Clusters may mean something genealogically or are at least historically important – and I’ll never be able to view that information any other way. In fact, before this tree was published, I wasn’t able to see this at all. Way to go Family Tree DNA!!

It’s very unlikely that I’ll match every person in my haplogroup – but the history of that haplogroup and all of the participants in that haplogroup are important to that historical lineage of my family. At one time, these people all shared one ancestor and determining when and where that person lived is relevant to my family story.

Searching for Your Haplogroup

I’m searching for haplogroup J1c2f by entering J1c2f in the “Go to Branch Name.”

There it is.

I can see that there are 17 people in Sweden, 13 in Norway, 5 in Germany, 3 in Russia, etc. What’s with the Scandinavian cluster? My most distant known ancestor was found in Germany. There’s something to be learned here that existing records can’t tell me!

The mother branch is J1c2 which shows the majority of individuals in Ireland followed by England. This probably suggests that while J1c2f may have been born in Scandinavia, J1c2 probably was not. According to the supplement to Dr. Doron Behar’s paper, A “Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA tree from its Root, which provides ages for some mitochondrial DNA haplogroups:

Haplogroup

How Old

Standard Deviation

Approximate Age Range in Years

J1c2

9762

2010

7,752 – 11,772

J1c2f

1926

3128

500 – 5,054

I happen to know from communicating with my matches that the haplogroup J1c2f was born more than 500 years ago because my Scandinavian mito-cousins know where their J1c2f cousin was then, and so do I. Mine was in Germany, so we know our common ancestor existed sometime before that 500 year window, and based on our mutations and the mutation tree we created, probably substantially before that 500 year threshold.

Given that J1c2, which doesn’t appear to have been born in Scandinavia is at least 7,700 years old, we can pretty safely conclude that my ancestor wasn’t in Scandinavia roughly 9,000 years ago, but was perhaps 2,000 years, ago when J1c2f was born. What types of population migration and movement happened between 2,000 and 9,000 years ago which would have potentially been responsible for the migration of a people from someplace in Europe into Scandinavia.

The first hint might be that in the Nordic Bronze Age, trade with European cultures became evident, which of course means that traders themselves were present. Scandinavian petroglyphs dating from that era depict ships and art works from as far away as Greece and Egypt have been found.

The climate in Scandinavia was warm during this period, but later deteriorated, pushing the Germanic tribes southward into continental Europe about 3000 years ago. Scandinavian influence was found in eastern Europe, and numerous Germanic tribes claimed Scandinavian origins 2000 years ago, including the Bergundians, Goths, Heruls and Lombards.

Hmmm, that might also explain how my mitochondrial DNA, in the form of my most distant known ancestor arrived in Germany, as well as the distribution into Poland.

Is this my family history? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that the clustering information on the new phylotree provides me with clustering data to direct my search for a historical connection.

The next few steps aren’t related to actually having your results displayed on the phylotree, but they are important to taking full advantage of the power of testing.

While viewing your account information, click on the Privacy and Sharing tab, and select to participate in matching, under Matching Preferences.

Also consent to Group Project Sharing AND allow your group project administrators to view your full sequence matches so that they can group you properly in any projects that you join. You full sequence mutations will never be shown publicly, only to administrators.

Join a project relevant to your haplogroup, such as the J project for haplogroup J. To join a project, click on myProjects at the top of the page, then on Join Projects.

To view available haplogroup projects, scroll down to the bottom of the screen that shows you available projects to join, and click on the letter of your haplogroup in the MTDNA Haplogroup Projects section.

Locate the applicable haplogroup, then click through to join the project.

These steps assure that you’ve maximized the benefits of your mitochondrial results for your own research and to your matches as well. Collaborative effort in completing geographic and known ancestor information means that we can all make discoveries.

Now, go and see who you match, where your closest matches cluster, and on the new mtDNA Haplotree, what kind of historical ancestral history your locations may reveal. What’s waiting for you?

_____________________________________________________________________

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

I’ve been wanting to celebrate my ancestors’ birthdays for some time now, and I’ve finally figured out exactly how to accomplish this goal in a really fun way.

Being reminded once a year about their birthday and the anniversary of their death reminds me to work on their genealogy, and in particular, genetic genealogy. With more people testing every single day, meaning different people at every vendor, we need to check often with specific ancestors in mind. You never know who’s going to be the person who puts the chink in that brick wall.

With this in mind, I’ve put together a spreadsheet to track what I know about each ancestor. This makes it easy to schedule those dates in my calendar, with a reminder of course, and then to check my spreadsheet to see what information might have been previously missing that might be able to be found today.

It’s like a birthday present for them, but now for me. I am, after all, their heir, along with the rest of their descendants of course! If I’m lucky, I inherited part of their DNA, and if not, their DNA is still relevant to me.

Checking the List

Here’s my spreadsheet checklist for each ancestor:

Birth date

Birth place

Death date

Death place

Spouse

Y DNA haplogroup (if male)

Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup

Autosomal confirmed

Ancestry Circle

New information becomes digitized every year making new information available.

Additionally, some items may change. For example, if a base haplogroup was previous known, a deeper haplogroup might be available a year later if someone has taken a more detailed test or the haplogroup name might have been updated. Yes, that happens too.

I originally had a triangulation column on the spreadsheet too, but I pretty quickly discovered that column was subject to lots of questions about interpretation. Is the actual ancestor triangulated, or the line? I decided that “autosomal confirmed” would suffice to cover whatever I decide constitutes confirmation and a comment column could hold the description. For example, my grandparents are autosomal confirmed because I match (and triangulate) with cousins who are descended from ancestors upstream of my grandparents. If my grandparent wasn’t my grandparent, I wouldn’t be related to those people either. In particular, first cousins.

I also added an “Article Link” column to paste the link to that ancestor’s 52 Ancestors article so I can quickly check or maybe even provide this spreadsheet to a family member.

Here’s an example of what the first several entries of my Ancestor Birthday Spreadsheet look like.

Ancestor Birthday Presents for You

In order to remind myself to check on my ancestors’ status, on their birth and death days, I schedule reminders in my phone calendar. Every morning when I wake, I’m greeted by my ancestor – well – at least this much of them.

First, I check at Family Tree DNA for new matches, haplogroups and the presence of my family lines in surname projects.

Then it’s off to Ancestry to see if I have any new green leaf DNA or record hints, to add or update the circle for this particular ancestor, and to see if any of my matches would be a candidate for either Y or mitochondrial DNA testing, assuming they reply to messages and agree to test at Family Tree DNA. I keep a separate spreadsheet of each person that I’ve identified as a match with an identified ancestor. I know it’s extra work, but that spreadsheet is invaluable for determining if the ancestor is autosomal proven and if the match is a candidate for Y or mtDNA testing.

Then I get another cup of coffee and check at MyHeritage for new record matches for that ancestor, along with new DNA SmartMatches.

GedMatch and 23andMe aren’t as easy to check for matches specific to ancestors, but I still check both places to see if I can find matches that I can identify as descending from that ancestor.

While I’m at it, sometimes I run over to FamilySearch to see if there’s anything new over there, although they don’t deal with DNA. They do, however, have many traditional genealogical records. I may add another column to track if I’m waiting for something specific to be digitized – like court minutes, for example. FamilySearch has been on a digitization binge!

As I go along, I add any new discovery to my genealogy software and my Ancestor Birthday Spreadsheet as well.

Any day that I get to find something new is a wonderful day indeed – fleshing out the lives, history and DNA of my ancestors. With this many places to look, there’s seldom a day that goes by that I don’t discover at least something in my ancestor scavenger hunt!

Ancestor birthday presents for me😊

_____________________________________________________________________

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

All genealogists should be asking this question for every single relationship between people in their trees – or at least for every person that they claim as an ancestor. The answer differs a bit when you introduce DNA into the equation, so let’s discuss this topic.

It’s easier to begin by telling you what proof IS NOT, rather than what proof is.

What is Proof, Anyway?

First of all, what exactly do we mean by proof? Proof means proof of a relationship, which has to be proven before you can prove a specific ancestor is yours. It’s a two-step process.

If you’re asking whether those two things are one and the same, the answer is no, they are not. Let me give you a quick example.

You can have proof that you descend from the family of a specific couple, but you may not know which child of that couple you descend from. In one case, my ancestor is listed as an heir, being a grandchild, but the suit doesn’t say which of the man’s children is the parent of my ancestor. So frustrating!

Conversely, you may know that you descend from a specific ancestor, but not which of his multiple wives you descend from.

You may know that your ancestor descends from one of multiple sons of a particular man, but not know which son.

Therefore, proof of a relationship is not necessarily proof that a particular person is your ancestor.

Not Proof of an Ancestor

OK, so what’s NOT proof? Here are a dozen of the most common items – and there are surely more!

Proof is not a DNA match alone. You can match as a result of ancestors on any number of lines, known or unknown.

Proof is not an oral history, no matter how much you want to believe it or who said it. Oral history is a good starting point, not an end point.

Proof is not, not, 1000 times NOT someone else’s tree. A tree should be considered a hint, nothing more.

Proof is not a book without corresponding evidence that can be independently corroborated. Being in print does not make it so, people make mistakes and new information surfaces.

Proof is not a man by the name of Jr., meaning that he is the son of a man by the same name with the suffix of Sr. Sr. often means older and Jr. means younger, but not necessarily related. Yes, this has bitten me.

Proof of a father/son relationship is not two men with the same name in the same location.

Proof is not a Y DNA match, at least not without additional information or evidence, although it’s a great hint!

Proof is not an autosomal DNA match, unless it is an extremely close match and even then you (probably) need additional information. For example, if you have a half-sibling match, you need additional information to determine which parent’s side.

Proof is not an Ancestry Circle, at least not without additional information.

Proof is not similar or even identical ethnicity, or lack thereof.

Proof is not a “DNA Proven” icon, anyplace.

Proof is not a will or other document, at least not alone, and not without evidence that a person by the same name as the child is the RIGHT person.

I learned many of these NOTS or KNOTS as I prefer to call them, because that’s what they tie me in, by ugly experience. I began genealogy before there were proof standards, let alone the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard). DNA adds yet another dimension to existing paper standards and is an important aspect of the requirement for a “reasonably exhaustive search.” In fact, there is no reason NOT to include DNA and I would suggest that any genealogical search is not complete without including genetic evidence.

Proof Is a Two-Way Street

Using traditional genealogy, genealogists must be able to prove not only that an ancestor had a child by a specific name, but that the person you believe is the child, is indeed the child of that ancestor.

Let me use an example of Daniel, the son of one Philip Jacob Miller in Washington County, Maryland in 1783.

The tax list shows Philip J. Miller, 15 entries from the bottom of the page, shown below. It also shows “Daniel Miller of Philip” 6 entries from the bottom, and it’s our lucky day because the tax list says that Daniel is Philip’s son.

But wait, there’s another Daniel, the bottom entry. If you were to look on the next page, you would also notice that there’s a Philip Miller who does not own any land.

What we have here is:

Philip J. Miller, with land

Daniel, son of Philip, no land

Daniel, no father listed, land

Philip, no land

This just got complex. We need to know which Philip is Daniel’s father and which Daniel is which Philip’s son.

Establishing proof requires more than this one resource.

The great news about this tax list is that it tells us how much land Philip J. Miller owned, and utilizing other resources such as deeds and surveys, we can establish which Philip J. Miller owned this land, and that his name was indeed Philip Jacob Miller. This is important because not only is there another Philip, who, by the way, is NOT the son of Philip Jacob Miller (knot #6 above), there is also another Jacob Miller, who is NOT Philip Jacob Miller and who isn’t even related to him on the Miller line, according to the Y DNA of both men’s descendants.

How would we prove that Philip Jacob Miller is the father of Daniel Miller? We’d have to follow both men backward and forward in time, together. We have great clues – land ownership or lack thereof.

In this case, Philip Jacob Miller eventually sells his land. Philip Jacob Miller also has a Bible, which is how we know that there is no son named Philip. Philip Jacob’s son, Daniel leaves with his brother David, also on this tax list, travels to another location before the family is reunited after moving to Kentucky years later, where Philip Jacob Miller dies with a will. All of his heirs sign property deeds during probate, including heirs back in Frederick and Washington County, Maryland. There is enough evidence from multiple sources to tie these various family members from multiple locations conclusively together, providing two way proof.

We must be able to prove that not only did Philip Jacob Miller have a son Daniel, but that a specific Daniel is the son of that particular Philip Jacob Miller. Then, we must repeat that exact step every generation to the present to prove that Philip Jacob Miller is our ancestor.

In other words, we have a chain of progressive evidence that taken together provides conclusive proof that these two men are BELIEVED to be related. What? Believed? Don’t we have proof now?

I say believed, because we still have issues like unknown parentage, by whatever term you wish to call it, NPE (nonpaternal event, nonparental event,) or MP (misattributed parentage,) MPE (misattributed paternal or parental event) or either traditional or undocumented adoptions. Some NPEs weren’t unknown at the time and are results of situations like a child taking a step-parent’s surname – but generations later – having been forgotten or undocumented for descendants, the result is the same. They aren’t related biologically in the way we think they are.

The Big Maybe

At this point, we believe we have the Philips, Philip Jacobs and Daniels sorted correctly relative to my specific line. We know, according to documentation, that Daniel is the son of Philip Jacob, but what if MY ancestor Daniel ISN’T the son of Philip Jacob Miller?

What if MY ancestor Daniel just happens to have the name Daniel Miller and lives in the same geography as Philip Jacob Miller, or his actual son Daniel, and I’ve gotten them confused?

What if MY ancestor Daniel Miller isn’t actually my ancestor after all, for any number of reasons that happened between when he lived and died (1755-1822) and my birth.

If you think I’m being facetious about this, I’m not. Not long after I wrote the article about my ancestor Daniel Miller, we discovered another Daniel Miller, living in the same location, also descended from the same family as evidenced by BOTH Y and autosomal DNA. In fact, there were 12 Daniel Millers I had to sort through in addition to the second Daniel on the 1783 tax list. Yes, apparently Daniel was a very popular name in the Miller family and yes, there were several male sons of immigrant Johann Michael Muller/Miller who procreated quite successfully.

Enter DNA

If DNA evidence wasn’t already a factor in this equation, it now must come into play.

In order to prove that Philip Jacob Miller is my ancestor, I must prove that I’m actually related to him. Of course, the methodology to do that can be approached in multiple ways – and sometimes MUST be approached using different tools.

Let’s use an example that actually occurred in another line. Two males, Thomas and Marcus Younger, were found together in Halifax County, Virginia, right after the Revolutionary War. They both had moved from Essex County, and they consistently were involved in each other’s lives as long as they both lived. They lived just a couple miles apart, witnessed documents for each other, and until DNA testing it was believed that Marcus was the younger brother of Thomas.

We know that Marcus was not Thomas’s son, because he was not in Thomas’s will, but Marcus and his son John both witnessed Thomas’s will. In that time and place, a family member did not witness a will unless it was a will hastily constructed as a person was dying. Thomas wrote his will 2 years before it was probated.

However, with the advent of DNA testing, we learned that the two men’s descendants did not carry the same Y DNA – not even the same haplogroup – so they do not share a common paternal ancestor.

Needless to say, this really threw a monkey wrench into our neat and tidy family story.

Later, the will of Thomas’s father, Alexander, was discovered, in which Marcus was not listed (not to mention that Alexander died before Marcus was born,) and, Thomas became the guardian of his three sisters.

Eventually, via autosomal DNA, we proved that indeed, Marcus’s descendants are related to Thomas’s descendants as well as other descendants of Thomas’s parents. We have a proven relationship, but not a specifically proven ancestor. In other words, we know that Marcus is related to both Thomas and Alexander, we just don’t know exactly how.

Unfortunately, Marcus only had one son, so we can’t confirm Marcus’s Y DNA through a second line. We also have some wives missing from the equation, so there is a possibility that either Marcus’s wife, or his unknown biological father’s family was otherwise related to Alexander’s line.

So, here’s the bottom line – we believe, based on various pieces of compelling but not conclusive evidence that Marcus is the illegitimate child of one of Thomas’s unmarried sisters, who died, which is why Marcus is clearly close to Thomas, shares the same surname, but not the Y DNA. In fact, it’s likely that Marcus was raised in Thomas’s household.

It’s entirely possible that if I incorrectly listed Thomas as Marcus’s father on Ancestry, as many have, that I would be placed in a Thomas circle, because Ancestry forms circles if your autosomal DNA matches and you show a common ancestor in your trees. This is why inclusion in a circle doesn’t genetically confirm an ancestor without additional information. It confirms a genetic relationship, but not how a person is related.

It’s entirely possible that even though Marcus’s Y DNA doesn’t match the proven Y DNA of Thomas, that Marcus is still closely related to Thomas – such as Marcus’s uncle. That’s why Marcus’s descendants match both Thomas’s and Alexander’s descendants through autosomal testing. However, without Y DNA testing, we would never know that they don’t share a paternal line.

It’s entirely possible that if Marcus was supposed, on paper, to be Thomas’s child, but was fathered by another man, such as his wife’s first husband, I would still be in the circle attributed to both Thomas and his wife, by virtue of the fact that I match DNA of Thomas’s descendants through Thomas’s wife. This is your classic step-father situation.

Paper is Not Proof

As genealogists, we became so used to paper documentation constituting proof that it’s a blow when that paper proves to be irrelevant, especially when we’ve hung our genealogical hat on that “proof” for years, sometimes decades.

The perfect example is an adoption. Today, most adoptions are through a court of law, but in the past, a functional adoption happened when someone, for whatever reason, took another child to raise.

The history of that “adoption” although not secret when it happened, became lost in time, and the child is believed to be the child of the couple who raised them. The adoption can actually be a step-parent situation, and the child may carry the step-father’s surname but his own father’s Y DNA, or it can be a situation where a relative or unrelated couple raised the child for some unknown reason.

Today, all paper genealogy needs to be corroborated by DNA evidence.

DNA evidence can be some combination of:

Y DNA

Autosomal DNA

Mitochondrial DNA

How Much Proof is Enough?

One of my favorite saying is “you don’t know what you don’t know.”

People often ask:

If they match someone autosomally who shares the same ancestor, do they really need to prove that line through Y or mitochondrial DNA?

Do they really need to match multiple people?

Do they really need to compare segments?

The answers to these is a resounding, “it depends.”

It depends on the circumstances, the length of time back to the common ancestor, and how comfortable you are not knowing.

Relative to question 1 about autosomal plus Y DNA, think about Marcus Younger. Without the Y DNA, we would have no idea that his descendant’s Y DNA didn’t match the Thomas Younger line. Suddenly, Marcus not being included in either Thomas nor Alexander’s will makes sense.

Relative to question 2 about matching multiple people, the first cousin we tested to determine whether it was me or my brother that was not the child of our father turned out to have different Y DNA than expected. Thank goodness we tested multiple people, including autosomal when it became available.

Relative to question 3 about comparing segments, every matching segment has its own unique history. I’ve encountered several situations where I match someone on one segment from one ancestor, and another segment from an entirely different line. The only way to determine this is by comparing and triangulating individual segments.

I’ve been bitten so many times by thinking I knew something that turned out to be incorrect that I want every single proof point that I can obtain to eliminate the possibility of error – especially multiple kinds of DNA proof. There are some things that ONLY DNA can reveal.

I want:

Traditional documentary evidence for every generation to establish the actual paper trail that proves that the child descends from the proper parents.

Y DNA to prove the son is the son of the father and to learn about the deeper family history. For example, my Lentz line descends from the Yamnaya culture, something I would never have known without the Big Y DNA test.

Mitochondrial DNA to prove that the mother is the actual mother of the child, if possible, not an unknown earlier or later wife, and to learn about the deeper family history. Elizabeth Mehlheimer’s mitochondrial DNA is Scandinavian – before her ancestors are found in Germany.

Autosomal DNA to prove that the paper lineage connecting me to the ancestor is correct and the line is not disrupted by a previously unknown adoption of some description.

Yes, my personal proof standard is tough, but I suggest that you at least ask these questions when you evaluate documentation or see someone claim that they are “DNA proven” to an ancestor. What, exactly, does that mean and what do they believe constitutes proof? Do they have that proof, and are they willing to share it with you?

Genealogical Proofs Table

The example table below is designed to be used to document the sources of proof that the individual listed under the name column is in fact the child of the father and mother shown. Proofs may vary and could be personal knowledge (someone you knew within your lifetime), a Bible, a will, a deed, an obituary, death certificate, a church baptismal document, a pension application, census records, etc. DNA confirmation is needed in addition to paper documentation. The two types of proof go hand in hand.

Name

Birth

Death

Spouse

Father

Mother

Proofs – Sources

DNA Confirmed

William Sterling Estes

Oct. 1, 1902, Claiborne Co., TN

Aug. 27, 1963, Jay Co., IN

Barbara Ferverda

William George Estes 1873-1971

Ollie Bolton 1874-1955

Personal knowledge – William is my father and William George is my grandfather.

Autosomal triangulated to multiple Estes cousins

William George Estes

March 30, 1873, Claiborne Co., TN

Nov. 29, 1971, Harlan Co., KY

1. Ollie Bolton

2. Joyce Hatfield

3. Crocia Brewer

Lazarus Estes 1845-1918

Elizabeth Vannoy 1846-1918

1. Will of Lazarus Estes Claiborne Co., Tn. Will Book 8, page 42

2. Deed where Lazarus states William George is his son. Claiborne Co., Deed Book M2, page 371.

3. My father’s personal knowledge and birth certificate

Autosomal triangulated to multiple descendants of both Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy.

Lazarus Estes

May 1845, Claiborne Co., TN

1916-1918, Claiborne Co., TN

Elizabeth Vannoy

John Y. Estes 1818-1895

Rutha Dodson 1820-1903

1. Personal knowledge of George Estes, now decd

2. Deed here John Y. deeds all his possessions to his eldest son, Lazarus when he goes to Texas, Claiborne Co., Deed book B1, page 37.

Y DNA confirmed to haplotype of Abraham Estes, autosomal triangulated to descendants of Lazarus and Elizabeth and upstream ancestors through multiple matches on both sides.

Y DNA confirmed through multiple sons. Autosomal triangulates to several descendants through multiple lines of other children.

John R. Estes

1785-1788, Halifax Co. VA

May 1885, Claiborne Co., TN

Nancy Ann Moore

George Estes 1763-1869

Mary Younger bef 1775-1820/1830

1. Halifax County 1812 personal property tax list where John R. Estes is listed as the son of George Estes and lives next to him. Only 1 George in the county. Later chancery suit lists John R.’s wife’s name and location in Tennessee

Y DNA confirmed through multiple lines. Autosomal confirmed triangulation of multiple lines of his children and his ancestors on both sides.

If you’d like to read more about the difference between evidence and proof, and how to get from evidence to proof, check out this article, What is proof of family history? by my cousin, retired attorney, Robin Rankin Willis.

Proof is a Pain!

So now that we’ve discussed what proof is not, and what types of records constitute proof, you may be thinking to yourself that proof is a pain in the behind. Indeed, it is, but without sufficient proof, you may literally be doing someone else’s genealogy or the genealogy of an ancestor that’s not your own. Trust me, that’s infinitely more painful.

I hate sawing branches off of my own tree. If I have to do it, the sooner I make the discovery and get it over with, the better.

Been there, done that, and really, I don’t want the t-shirt.

There is never such a thing as “too much” proof, but there is certainly too little. We are fortunate to live in a time when not only are historical records available, but the record passed by our ancestors inside our very cells tells their story. Use every tool and every type of DNA at your disposal! Otherwise, you get the t-shirt:)

_____________________________________________________________________

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

You’re the same person, right, so why would you receive different answers from different testing companies, and which answer is actually right?

The answer is pretty straightforward, conceptually – having to do with how vendors test and interpret your DNA.

Different companies test different pieces of your DNA, depending on:

The type of chip the company is using for testing

The way they have programmed the chip

The version of the reference “tree” they are using to assign haplogroups

The level they have decided to report

Therefore, their haplogroups reported may vary, and some may be more exact than others. Occasionally, a vendor outside the major testers is simply wrong.

Not All Tests are Created Equal

All haplogroups carry interesting information and can be at least somewhat genealogically useful. For example, haplogroups alone can tell you if your direct line DNA (paternal or matrilineal) is probably European, Asian, African or Native American. Note the word probably. This too may be subject to interpretation.

A basic haplogroup can rule out a genealogical match through a specific branch, but can’t confirm a genealogical match. You need to compare specific DNA locations not provided with haplogroup testing alone for genealogical matching. Plus you’ll need to add genealogical records where possible.

Let’s look at two examples.

Mitochondrial DNA

Your mitochondrial DNA is inherited from your mother’s direct line, on up you tree until you run out of mothers. So, you, your mother, her mother, her mother…etc.

The red circles show the mitochondrial lineage in the pedigree chart, below.

If your mitochondrial haplogroup is H1a, for example, then your base haplogroup is “H”, the first branch is “1” and the next smaller branch is “a.”

Therefore, if you don’t match at H, your base haplogroup, you aren’t a possible match on that genealogical line. In other words, if you are H1a, or H plus anything, you can’t match on the direct matrilineal line of someone who is J1a, or J plus anything. H and J are different base haplogroups who haven’t shared a common ancestor in tens of thousands of years.

You can, however, potentially be related on any other line – just not on this specific line.

If your haplogroup does match, even exactly, that doesn’t mean you are related in a genealogically relevant timeframe. It means you share an ancestor, but that common ancestor may be back hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

The further downstream, the younger the branches. “H” is the oldest, then “1,” then “a” is the youngest.

Some companies might just test the locations for H, some for H1 and some for H1a. Of course, there are even more haplogroups, like H1a2a. New, more refined haplogroups are discovered with each new version of the mitochondrial reference tree.

The only company that tests your haplogroup all the way to the end, meaning the most refined test possible to give you your complete haplogroup and all mutations, is Family Tree DNA with their mtFull Sequence test.

A quick comparison of my mitochondrial DNA at the following three vendors shows the following:

23andMe

Living DNA

Family Tree DNA Full Seqence

J1c2

J1c

J1c2f

With Family Tree DNA’s full sequence test, you’ll receive your full haplogroup along with matching to other people who have taken mitochondrial DNA tests. They are the only vendor to offer Y and mitochondrial matching, because they are the only vendor that tests at that level.

Y DNA

Y DNA operates on the same principle. Specific locations called SNPs are tested by companies like 23andMe and Living DNA to provide customers with a branch level haplogroup. You don’t receive matching with these types of tests.

Just like with mitochondrial DNA, a basic branch level test can eliminate a match on the direct paternal (surname) branch but can’t confirm the genealogical match.

If your haplogroup branch is E-M2 and someone else’s is R-M269, you can’t share a common paternal ancestor because your base haplogroups don’t match, meaning E and R.

You can share an ancestor on any other line, just not on the direct Y line.

The blue squares show the Y DNA lineage on the pedigree chart below.

Family Tree DNA predicts your haplogroup for free if you take the 37, 67 or 111 marker Y-DNA STR test, but if you take the Big Y-500, your Y chromosome is completely tested and your haplogroup defined to the most refined level possible (often called your terminal SNP) – including mutations that may exist in only very few people. You also receive matching to other testers (with any Y test) which can be very genealogically relevant, plus bonus Y STR markers with the Y-500.

OK, But Why Do Different Companies Give Me Different Haplogroup Results?

Great question.

For this example, let’s say your haplogroup is H1a2a.

Let’s say that Company 1 uses a chip that they’ve programmed to test to the H1a level of haplogroup H1a2a.

Let’s say that Company 2 uses a chip that they’ve programmed to test to the H1 level of haplogroup H1a2a.

Let’s say that you take the full sequence test with Family Tree DNA and they fully test all 15,659 locations of your mitochondria and determine that you are H1a2a.

Company 1 will report your mitochondrial haplogroup as H1a, Company 2 as H1 and Family Tree DNA as H1a2a.

With mitochondrial DNA, you can at least see some consist pathway in naming practices, meaning H, H1, H1a, etc., so you can tell that you’re on the same branch.

With Y DNA, the only consistent part is the base haplogroup.

With Y DNA, let’s say that Company 1 programs their chip to test for specific SNP locations, and they return a Y DNA haplogroup of R-L21.

Company 2 programs their chip to test for fewer or different locations and they return a Y DNA haplogroup of R-M269.

You purchase a Big Y-500 test at Family Tree DNA, and they return your haplogroup as R-CTS3386.

All three haplogroups can be correct, as far as they go. It’s just that they don’t test the same distance down the Y chromosome tree.

R-M269, R-L21 and R-CTS3386 are all increasingly smaller branches on the Y haplotree.

Furthermore, for both Y and mitochondrial DNA, there is always a remote possibility that a critical location won’t be able to be read in your DNA sample that might affect your haplogroup.

Obtaining Your Haplogroup

I strongly encourage people to test with and upload to only well-known major companies or organizations. Some companies provide haplogroup information that is simply wrong.

This standard disclosure appears at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

I provide Personalized DNA Reports for Y and mitochondrial DNA results for people who have tested through Family Tree DNA. I provide Quick Consults for DNA questions for people who have tested with any vendor. I would welcome the opportunity to provide one of these services for you.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 900 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA, or one of the affiliate links below:

Were it not for two baptismal records, we would have no idea of the name of Cunrad (Conrad) Heitz’s wife, Anna Margaretha.

My cousin and friend, retired German genealogist, Tom, found these two priceless baptism records in the Mannheim church records, although I can’t include the images because they are from Archion who does not allow usage of their images.

I wonder what happened to Johannes. Mannheim death records don’t exist for this timeframe.

Mannheim

According to German researcher, Chris, at the end of the 30 Years War, in 1648, only about 500 people were left in Mannheim. In 1652, the city invited foreigners to settle, offering tax abatements, customs relief and more incentives.

We don’t know when Conrad Heitz and Anna Margaretha arrived in Mannheim. We don’t know if they arrived as a couple, or if Conrad arrived as a soldier and married a local girl. The only thing we do know is that someplace, they were having children by between 1654 and 1663.

Of course, it’s also possible that the soldiers and their families weren’t actually living in the city proper, perhaps assigned to special military housing or living in the actual fort.

What this map does do, however, is to give us a feel for the layout of the city. We know that they did live here 13 years later, and the street layout and location of churches and other public buildings wouldn’t have changed much.

However, more than half of the residents present in 1663 died in 1666 when Mannheim was devastated by the plague. Many of the wealthy residents left, so the city would have been a ghost-town compared to the 1663 map.

During the time that Anna Margaretha lived in Mannheim, from at least 1676 through 1679, it was a city both recovering from and preparing for war.

Leveled during the Thirty Years’ War, Mannheim had rebuilt and was populated mostly by Protestants, many from the Netherlands. A castle was constructed which made Mannheim a target for the next war, known as the Nine Years War which began in 1688 in which France sought to unify Europe under the Catholic religion, not to mention under the French king.

Mannheim fell as a result of a siege in 1688 and was burned to the ground in 1689. A decade later it was rebuilt on the original grid street pattern between the two rivers, the Rhine and Neckar.

The map above, discovered by Chris, shows the city of Mannheim at the time of the 1688 siege. The legend on the right shows the locations of military weapons, such as cannons. If Conrad was there, he might well have been manning those cannons and assuredly was protecting the city walls in some fashion. Conrad may have already been dead before 1688, or he could have died in the siege, but not everyone succumbed. The city surrendered, allowing many citizens to escape.

It’s worth noting that after the city fell, the French granted 400 Palatine soldiers the opportunity to leave and remove themselves to Frankfurt, so if Conrad was there, he might have survived. If Anna Margaretha was witness to this frightening attack, she might have lived through this episode as well, but I think Anna Margaretha had already died by this time.

Chris notes that the French Reformed Church of Mannheim moved altogether to the city of Magdeburg after the siege, and I’d bet most or all of the parishioners went along. Soon, there would be nothing left of Mannheim as it was literally burned to the ground in March of 1689.

This map of Mannheim from 1758 shows a walled city rebuilt after 1700. The 1880 map below shows the location of the churches and public buildings. Of course, we don’t know if the churches on the 1880s map are reflective of the locations or even part of the same buildings from the 1676/1679 churches, before the fire.

Exactly how the church records survived is unknown, although I’m sure they have an amazing story all their own. I’m guessing that someone removed them from Mannheim to protect them as it became evident with the approach of 30,000 French soldiers that fighting in Mannheim was inevitable. It’s also possible that they were removed sometime between the fall of Mannheim in November of 1688 and the burning of the city in March of 1689. We’re lucky the baptism and marriage books escaped, because death records don’t begin until 1739 and those two baptisms are our only link to Anna Margaretha.

Because of the location of the city, at the confluence of two rivers, and adjacent swampy land, the city of Mannheim itself had no room for expansion. Anna Margaretha lived someplace inside this semi-circular gridded city, on one of these streets.

Given that we know that Conrad was a solder, alive in 1684 and probably deceased by 1692, and that he served in Mannheim, it’s quite possible that he perished in the service of his country in the 1688 battle or the subsequent sacking of the Palatine.

Since we know that Conrad served in Mannheim, and that was the location given in 1698, a decade after we know that Mannheim fell and nine years after we know it had been deserted, I think the 1698 record suggests that Conrad last served in Mannheim, which also suggests that he died there as well. He was probably gone by 1692 when his son was confirmed in the Steinwenden church with no mention of Conrad Sr.

No one served in Mannheim after March of 1689 and probably not after November of 1688. Of course, Conrad Sr. could have perished before or during the siege itself. Unless we’d be lucky enough to find detailed records for Shabinger’s unit, we’ll likely never know.

Anna Margaretha’s Children

We pieced Anna Margaretha’s life together through the records of her children, and her children’s records were anything but easy to piece together.

Irene Lisabetha Heitz (c1654/1663-1729) – Irene is a mystery in many ways. In her 1784 marriage record to Michael Muller in the Miesau church records, her name is recorded as Irene Liesabetha and she is noted as being the daughter of Cunrad Heitz, a soldier from Kurpfalz Region, which is another word for the Palatine.

As Irene moved to different church jurisdictions throughout her life, her name was recorded differently, initially as Irene Charitas as Michael Miller’s wife, and then later as Regina Loysa. She is noted with variations on Regina Loysa when she marries Johann Jacob Stutzman in 1696 and thereafter, except for one record where she is again called Irene. However, when she married Jacob Stutzman as Regina Loysa, she was identified as the widow of Michael Muller, so her identity has been established, albeit with much difficulty. Her death record, in yet another church in another city on March 27, 1729, says that she is “age 75.” That would put her birth in 1654, making her 52 when she had her last child, Johann Jacob Stutzman, in 1706. That’s somewhat unlikely, but not entirely impossible. It’s more likely that she was born about 1663 which would make her 43 in 1706 and 21 when she married Michael Muller. Using either calculation, she is probably the eldest child of Cunrad Heitz and Anna Margaretha, assuming that Anna Margaretha is her mother.

Irene, often referred to as Irene Charitas, has been consistently mis-identified in many records for decades. Often Charitas is shown as her last name. In fact, I did the same thing and even a second time when I mis-identified her surname as Schlosser. You can read the progression through the various records and how the life of Irene was unpeeled like an onion, here, here, and here. (Yes, this onion made me cry a lot!) You can read about her first husband, here and life with her second husband here. If you’re thinking this series reads more like a web than a story, you’re absolutely right! Just think of these as chapters in a who-done-it!

Johann Samuel Heitz(c1670-1717/1728) – Samuel is first mentioned in 1692 as a tailor in a Steinwenden baptismal record where he is a godparent. This tells us that by 1692 he is an adult with a trade, so I’m assuming at least age 20, perhaps older. He is also mentioned at Christmas 1692 when Conrad Heitz was confirmed in the church as Conrad’s brother. Samuel married the widow, Catharina Apollonia Schafer Schumacher in February 1697. She was the widow of Michael Schumacher, son of Niclaus Schumacher from Rohrbach. In 1704, Jacob Ringeisen was the godparent to one of Samuel’s children. This could be significant since Jacob Ringiesen was the cousin of Michael Muller, the first husband of Samuel’s sister, Irene. In 1717, Samuel is mentioned in the church records as the censor, which is a guardian of the church morals. In 1728, Samuel’s widow died, so he clearly predeceased her, although we don’t know when or where Samuel died. There is a 1721 record where Samuel’s daughter is a godmother, and the record doesn’t say the “late” Samuel Heitz, but it’s in a different church outside the immediate area and may simply be an omission.

I’ve reconstructed the family of Samuel Heitz and Catharina Apollonia through church records:

Child

Christening

Death/Burial

Confirm

Other

Johan Adam

December 26, 1697

Maria Magdalena

March 1, 1699

1712

Anna Elisabetha

September 1, 1700

March 31, 1741, burial April 2

Married Johannes Friess

Hans Adam

August 7, 1703

Johann Heinrich

August 14, 1703

Eva Catharina

July 13, 1704

1717

Married Johann Nicholaus Schwind July 27, 1728

Maria Margreth

October 31, 1706

Catharina Barbara

September 24, 1713

October 29, 1713

Johann Cunrad Heitz (1676-1698) – A Mannheim church record shows Hans Cunrad’s birth on August 1, 1676 and lists his parents’ names. His mother’s full given name is Anna Margaretha although in keeping with tradition, no birth surname is listed for her. Cunrad’s first mention in the Steinwenden church records occurs in 1692 as being confirmed at Christmas. He’s noted as the brother of Samuel, the tailor. This would suggest Cunrad was 12 or 13 so born about 1690, although according to his baptismal record, he was born in 1676. Perhaps the family was unable to have his confirmation when it would normally have occurred in 1688, which was when Mannheim fell to French forces. On January 17, 1698 Cunrad (Jr.) died in Ramstein, unmarried and was noted as the son of Cunrad Heitz, deceased, soldier of Mannheim,

Johannes Heitz (1679-?) – Johannes’ baptism is recorded in 1679, but no further mention is found. Death records in Mannheim don’t exist before 1739. In his baptism record, his mother’s name is given as Margaretha. He may have died before the church records began in Miesau and Steinwenden, in 1681 and 1684, respectively – or he could have died elsewhere.

Anna Catharina Heitz (born 1677/78 or 1680/84) – On January 15, 1715 in Kallstadt, Catharina, “daughter of the late Cunrad Heitz from Ramstein…(margin),” married Johannes Shumacher. Cunrad Heitz, Jr. who died in Ramstein in 1798 was age 20-23 and unmarried, so Catharina must be the daughter of Cunrad Heitz, Sr. and the location of Ramstein must have been referring to her residence, or former residence.

In Weilach, a farm outside Kallstadt, Catharina was living with her sister, Irene Heitz Muller Stutzman who was at that time married to Johann Jacob Stutzman. Based solely on Catharina’s 1715 marriage, she would have been born about 1695 or earlier. As the sister of Irene, Catharina would probably have been born before 1684 due to the lack of any mention of Irene’s mother in the existing church records. Either way, the connection with Irene/Regina by living at Weilach is unmistakable. The following year Catharina and her husband, a cowherd, while living on the estate managed by Jacob Stutzman, give birth to a child and Irene/Regina stands up for the child, her niece, as Godmother. Irene/Regina’s son by her first marriage, Michael Muller/Miller, stands up for Catharina’s child born in 1722.

Catharina’s husband is given as Johannes in the difficult to translate 1715 marriage record. In two other records he is called respectively by the name of Nicholas Schumacher (1716) and Johannes again in 1722 when another child is born. Family Search shows him as Johann and Johanni in all three birth records.

It’s worth noting perhaps that Samuel Heitz’s wife, Catharina Apollonia’s first husband was Michael Schumacher, son of Niclaus Schumacher. Schumacher, German for shoemaker, was a very common surname, so this may simply be a coincidence.

The three known children of Anna Catharina and Johann or Niclaus Schumacher are:

Child

Birth

Christening

Confirm

Other

Susanna Elisabetha

January 17, 1716

January 19

Baptized in Kallstadt

Maria Elisabetha

October 14, 1719

October 19

Baptized in Kallstadt

Johann Michael

January 15, 1722

January 20

Baptized in Kallstadt

Catharina’s age is estimated based on the fact that she gave birth in 1722. If she was 43 in 1722, she would have been born in 1679. We know that Catharina could not have been born in 1679 because her mother, Anna Margaretha, had another child in May of that year.

There is a gap between the August 1676 and May 1679 Mannhaim births, so Anna Catharina could have been born in about December of 1677 or January of 1678. For Anna Catharina to have been born 18 months before the August 1676 birth, in February of 1675 would have put her age at 47 in 1722 when she gave birth to Johann Michael Schumacher. Not impossible, but unlikely.

We also don’t know why Anna Catharina didn’t have children after 1722. She may have been past childbearing years, or the records could be missing, she or her husband could have died, or the family could have moved.

If Anna Catharine was born after Johannes Heitz in 1679, it could have not have been before May of 1680, and that’s assuming that Johannes died shortly after birth.

Therefore, Anna Catherine was probably either born in 1677/1678 or between 1680 and 1684 when Irene is marrying Michael Muller in Steinwenden with no indication of her mother’s presence. Anna Catharina’s absence in Steinwenden church records as a godmother for her sister’s children would most likely be explained by the fact that she was significantly younger than her sister, too young to stand up as a godmother.

Sketchy Timeline

While admittedly sketchy, this does give us something of a timeline for Anna Margaretha’s life.

Assuming that Anna Margaretha was also the mother of Irene Elisabetha and the other Heitz children, we know the following:

Her husband was a professional soldier and was noted as being from both Kurpfalz in 1684 when Irene was married and Mannheim in 1676, 1679 and 1698 when Cunrad Jr., her son, died.

Anna Margaretha was living in Mannheim in 1676 and 1679 when sons Johann Cunrad and Johannes were born.

We know that by 1684, at least one of the children of Hans Cunrad Heitz Sr. and Anna Margaretha was in Steinwenden. Not one time is there ever any mention of Anna Margaretha in any of the church records there, which leads me to believe Anna Margaretha died between 1679 and 1684 when the first mention of the Heitz family is found in Steinwenden through the Miesau church records.

There is also no mention of the child Johannes, so it’s likely that both Anna Margaretha and Johannes died between 1679 and 1684.

Living as the wife of a professional soldier could not have been easy. Conrad would have been gone often, with no assurance that he was ever coming home. If he did return, would he be injured? Was he injured or maybe disabled? What kind of a husband was he?

How did the family of a soldier survive? Clearly, they couldn’t very well farm with Conrad being absent and Anna Margaretha having small children. Not only that, but Anna Margaretha lived in a walled city at the confluence of two rivers. Her options were very limited. Did the Palatine state support the soldier and their families?

The families of soldiers probably moved when the unit moved. If so, was Conrad in Miesau, Ramstein or Steinwenden? What brought him there? Or was he ever in those locations? Were his children there because they were being raised by someone, perhaps the Reverend Samuel Hoffman and his wife, Irene, after his wife, Anna Margaretha died?

Did the Heitz family know the Michael Muller family from elsewhere? Is that why Jacob Ringeisen was involved too? Did they know Samuel Hoffman and his wife Irene Beuther somehow? Is the fact that they named a child both Irene and Samuel simply a coincidence? What is the connection?

If not the Hoffmans, then who was raising the Heitz children in Steinwenden, and why?

Deducing Information

There is always so much room for error when we have to deduce significant amounts of information, but sometimes that’s our only option. Let’s take a look at what we have, and what makes the most sense.

Irene is the oldest child that we know of. There could have been earlier children born to Anna Margaretha. Since we have neither her nor her husband’s birth, marriage or death records, we have to deduce information from the births of the known children.

If Irene was 20 when she married Johann Michael Muller in 1684, and her mother Anna Margaretha was 20 when Irene was born, then Anna Margaretha would have been born about 1644. She could easily have been born earlier, but not much later.

How much earlier?

If Anna Margaretha’s last known child born in 1679 was born when she was 43, then her birth would have been about 1636.

Now we have Anna Margaretha’s birth date bracketed as 1636-1644, an 8-year span. Not terribly bad for having only sketchy information about her children.

Based on her absence in church records, we’ll estimate Anna Margaretha’s death date as 1679-1684.

Anna Margaretha was between 35 and 48 when she passed away. Young by any measure. Certainly not a death of old age. Something happened.

We know that Anna Margaretha left unmarried children when she died. Given that their father, a soldier, was clearly often absent, Anna Margaretha’s children must have been especially close to her. She was the ever-present parent – so when she died, a gaping void must have opened in their lives, along with uncertainty about their future.

What would happen to them? The visual I see is tearful, frightened children huddled together, clinging to each other, with eyes full of fear as they surround their deceased mother’s body.

How did a soldier take care of children without a wife, especially in a time of war?

Godparents were expected to step in when parents died. The two children whose baptismal records we have from the 1676 and 1679 records list other soldiers in Conrad’s military unit as their godparents.

Where was the unit when Anna Margaretha died? Where were those soldiers? How would they care for children?

We know that Irene was in Steinwenden in 1684 and we also know that Cunrad Jr., who was also underage was in Steinwenden in 1692 when he was confirmed. We know that Cunrad Sr. was alive in 1684 because he is referred to in the present tense as a soldier in the service of the Palatine. Conrad Sr. was probably deceased by 1692 at the confirmation of Cunrad, Jr. who is listed as the brother of Samuel (instead of son of Cunrad). Anna Margaretha isn’t mentioned either.

Samuel, the second oldest, a tailor, was an adult with a trade by 1692, married in 1697 and appears to have lived lifelong in Steinwenden.

By 1697, we know positively that Cunrad Sr. is dead and in 1698, his final notation was that he was a soldier in Mannheim, with no mention of Steinwenden. We also know that no soldier has served in Mannheim since 1688.

It would appear that the military godparents did not raise these children – and that the children stayed together. Three of the 5 known children are mentioned in Steinwenden church records.

Perhaps the Reverend Samuel Hoffman and his wife, Irene, were raising these children. It’s not unlikely that they were the godparents of both Irene and Samuel Heitz. That would clearly explain the continuing close connection between the Heitz and Hoffman families – especially if Samuel Hoffman and his wife Irene Charitas, with no children themselves, were godparents for two of Anna Margaretha’s children. If they took three of the Heitz children to raise, it’s probable that they took Catharina and Johannes as well, if Johannes was alive.

Maybe Anna Margaretha truly could rest in peace after all, as unlikely as that sounds.

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to both genders of their children, but only the daughters pass it on. Therefore, anyone today who descends from Anna Margaretha through all females to the current generation, which can be male, carries Anna Margaretha’s mitochondrial DNA.

Mitochondrial DNA has a story all its own to tell. It reveals the history of Anna Margaretha’s direct matrilineal line and provides information not available any other way. Mitochondrial DNA is a periscope directly down one line back in time.

Anna Margaretha had two known daughters, both of whom had daughters.

Irene Heitz Muller Stutzman, wife of Jacob Stutzman had one daughter who survived:

Anna (also noted as Maria in some records) Catharina Stutzman/Stotzman born in 1699 married Johann Adam Schmidt on February 18, 1721 in Kallstadt, Germany.

We know that Catharina and Adam had at least one daughter, Johann Regina Schmidt, probably in or about 1722, but the year is smeared.

Clearly Anna Catharina and Adam Schmidt could have had additional daughters. Their one known daughter, Johann Regina Schmidt could have married and had daughters to continue the mitochondrial DNA into future generations.

Anna Catherina Heitz, wife of Johannes Nicholaus? Schumacher had two known daughters born in Kallstadt:

Susanna Elisabetha Schumacher born January 17, 1716.

Maria Elisabetha Schumacher born October 14, 1719.

Anna Catherine could have had additional daughters. Either or both of her daughters could have married and continued the line.

If you are a known descendant of Anna Margaretha Heitz through any of her children, I’d love to hear from you.

If you descend through one these daughters through an unbroken line of females to the current generation, which can be male, I have a mitochondrial DNA testing scholarship waiting just for you. You carry Anna Margaretha’s mitochondrial DNA. How cool is that!!!

Today, about 5 weeks shy of the blog’s 6th birthday, I’m publishing my 1000th article – this one. I don’t even want to know how many words or pages, but I do know I’ve gone through two keyboards – worn the letters right off the keys.

My original goal in 2012 was to publish one article per week. That would have been 307 articles this week. I’ve averaged 3.25 articles a week. That’s almost an article every other day, which even surprises me!

That’s wonderful news for my readers because it means that there is so much potential in the genetic genealogy world that I need to write often. Even so, I always feel like there is so much to say – so much that needs to be taught and that I’ll never catch up.

I’m not surprised that the article about Native American heritage and DNA testing is number one. Many people want to verify their family stories of Native American ancestry. It was and remains a very large motivation for DNA testing.

Which DNA Test is Best? – Compares the tests, companies and reasons for testing to help readers create a test plan that will provide them with the information they seek.

4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy – A short overview article with graphics describing Y, mitochondrial, autosomal and X DNA – what they are, why test for them and what they can do for you. This is my basic go-to article and I refer people daily.

Ethnicity Testing – A Conundrum – Explains how and why ethnicity testing works – and sometimes doesn’t. This is my ethnicity go-to article and I use it all the time.

How Much Indian Do I Have in Me? – If I had a dollar for every time I’m asked this question, I could purchase unlimited DNA tests and would be living in the south of France. This self-help article explains how to calculate the percentage of DNA people “should,” on average, carry from an ancestor. And yes, people still ask anyway.

One link I expected to see on this list, but didn’t, is my Help page. Maybe because it’s a page and not an article? Maybe I should publish it as an article too. Hmmm….

What Do These Articles Have In Common?

Four are about ethnicity, which doesn’t surprise me. In the past couple of years, one of the major testing companies has pushed ethnicity testing as a “shortcut” to genealogy. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

Unfortunately, it encourages a misperception of DNA testing and what it can reasonably do, causing dissatisfaction and kit abandonment. Fortunately, advertising encourages people to test and some will go on to get hooked, upload trees and engage.

The good news is that judging from the popular articles, at least some people are researching ethnicity testing – although I have to wonder if it’s before or after they receive their test results.😊

Three articles are specifically about Native American heritage, although I suspect people who discover that they don’t carry as much Native as they expected are also reading ethnicity articles.

Two articles are specifically not about autosomal results, which pleases me because many autosomal testers don’t know about Y and mitochondrial DNA, or if they do, they don’t understand what it can do for them or how to utilize results.

Several articles fall into the research category – meaning an article someone might read to decide what tests to purchase or how to understand results.

Key Word Searchable

One of the things I love about WordPress, my blogging platform, is that DNA-eXplained is fully keyword searchable. This means that you can enter any term you want to find in the search box in the upper right-hand corner and you’ll be presented with a list of articles to select from.

For example, if you enter the phrase “Big Y,” you’ll find every article, beginning with the most recent that either has those words in the title, the text or as a tag or category.

Go ahead, give it a try. What would you like to learn about?

More Tools – Tags and Categories

Tags and categories help you find relevant information and help search engines find relevant articles when you “Google” for something.

If you scroll down the right-hand sidebar of the blog, you’ll see, in order:

Bloggers categorize their articles, so if you want to view the articles I’ve categorized as “Acadians” or “Art,” for example, just click on that link.

I use Tags as a more general article categorization. Tags are displayed in alphabetical order with the largest font indicating the tags with the most tagged articles.

You can see that I categorize a lot of articles as Basic Education and General Information. You can click on any tag to read those articles.

My Biggest Surprise

I’ve been asked what’s the most surprising thing that I’ve learned.

I very nearly didn’t publish my 52 Ancestors series because I didn’t think people would be interested in my own family stories about my ancestors and the search that uncovered their history.

Was I ever wrong. Those stories, especially the research techniques, including DNA of course, have been extremely well received. I’ve learned that people love stories.

Thank you for the encouragement. This next week will be the 197th article in that series.

I encourage everyone to find a way to tell the story of your ancestors too. If you don’t, who will?

My Biggest Disappointment

I think my biggest disappointment has been that not enough people utilize the information readily available on the blog. By this, I mean that I see questions on Facebook in multiple groups every day that I’ve already written about and answered – sometimes multiple times in different ways.

This is where you can help. If you see questions like that, please feel free to share the love and post links to any articles. With roughly 12 million testers today and more before year end – there are going to be lots of questions.

Let’s make sure they receive accurate answers.

Sharing

Please feel free to share and post links to any of my articles. That’s the purpose. You don’t need to ask permission.

If you would like to reproduce an article for any reason, please contact me directly.

Most of all, read, enjoy and learn. Encourage others to do so as well. The blog is free for everyone, but any support you choose to give by way of purchasing through affiliate links is greatly appreciated. It doesn’t cost you more, but a few cents comes my way from each purchase through an affiliate link to help support the blog.

What’s Coming?

I have a few articles in process, but I’d like to know what you’d like to see.

Do you have suggestions? Please leave them in the comments.

I’ve love to hear from you and I often write articles inspired by questions I receive.

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Thank You

There’s so much available today – it’s a wonderful time to be a genealogist that’s using DNA. There used to be a difference between a genealogist and a genetic genealogist – but I think we’ve moved past that stage and every genealogist should be utilizing all aspects of DNA (Y, mitochondrial, autosomal and X) as tools.

Thank you for subscribing, following or however you read these articles. You’re an amazing audience. I’ve made the unexpected wonderful discovery that many of you are my cousins as well.

Thanks to you, I’ve unraveled mysteries I never thought would be solved. I’ve visited ancestral homelands as a result of your comments and assistance. I’ve met amazing people. Yes, that means YOU!

I’m extremely grateful. I started this blog to help other people, never imagining how much it would help me too.

I love writing for you, my extended family.

Enjoy and Happy Ancestor Hunting!

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Until recently, when people (often relatives) expressed concerns about DNA testing, genetic genealogy buffs would explain that the tester could remain anonymous, and that their test could be registered under another name; ours, for example.

This means, of course, that since our relative is testing for OUR genealogy addiction, er…hobby, that we would take care of those pesky inquiries and everything else. Not only would they not be bothered, but their identity would never be known to anyone other than us.

Let’s dissect that statement, because in some cases, it’s still partially true – but in other cases, anonymity in DNA testing is no longer possible.

You certainly CAN put your name on someone else’s kit and manage their account for them. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this, depending on the testing vendor you select.

If the DNA testing is either Y or mitochondrial DNA, it’s extremely UNLIKELY, if not impossible, that their Y or mitochondrial DNA is going to uniquely identify them as an individual.

Y and mitochondrial DNA is extremely useful in identifying someone as having descended from an ancestor, or not, but it (probably) won’t identify the tester’s identity to any matching person – at least not without additional information.

Y and mitochondrial DNA can be used to rule in or rule out specific descendant relationships. In other words, you can unquestionably tell for sure that you are NOT related through a specific line. Conversely, you can sometimes confirm that you are most likely related to someone you match through the direct Y (patrilineal) line for males, and matrilineal mitochondrial line for both males and females. That match could be very distant in time, meaning many generations – even hundreds or thousands of years ago.

However, autosomal DNA, which tests a subset of all of your DNA for the genealogical goal of matching to cousins and confirming ancestors is another matter entirely. Some of the information you discern from autosomal testing includes how closely you match, which effectively predicts a range of relationships to your match.

These matches are much more recent in time and do not reach back into the distant past. The more closely you are related, the more DNA you share, which means that your DNA is identifying your location in the family tree, regardless of the name you put on the test itself.

Now, let’s look at the difference between anonymization and pseudonymization.

It may seem trivial, but it isn’t.

Anonymization vs Pseudonymization

Recently, as a result of the European Union GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation,) we’ve heard a lot about privacy and pseudonymization, which is not the same as anonymized data.

Anonymized data must be entirely stripped of any identifiable information, making it impossible to derive insights on a discreet individual, even by the person or entity who performed the anonymization. In other words, anonymization cannot be reversed under any circumstances.

Given that the purpose of genetic genealogy conflicts with the concept of anonymization, the term pseudonymization is more properly applied to the situation where someone masks or replaces the name of the tester with the goal of hiding the identity of the person who is actually taking the test.

Pseudonymization under GDPR (Article 4(5)) is defined as “the processing of personal data in such a way that the data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of ‘additional information.’”

In reality, pseudonymization is what has been occurring all along, because the tester could always be re-identified by you.

However, and this important, neither anonymization or pseudonymization can be guaranteed to disguise your identity anymore.

Anonymous Isn’t Anonymous Anymore

The situation with autosomal DNA and the expectation of anonymity has changed rather gradually over the past few years, but with tidal wave force recently with the coming-of-age of two related techniques:

The increasingly routine identification of biological parents

The Buckskin Girl and Golden State Killer cases in which a victim and suspect were identified in April 2018, respectively, by the same methodology used to identify biological parents

Therefore, with autosomal DNA results, meaning the raw data results file ONLY, neither total anonymity or any expectation of pseudonymization is reasonable or possible.

Why?

The reason is very simple.

The size of the data bases of the combined mainstream vendors has reached the point where it’s unusual, at least for US testers, to not have a reasonably close match with a relative that you did not personally test – meaning third cousin or closer. Using a variety of tools, including in-common-with matches and trees, it’s possible to discern or narrow down candidates to be either a biological parent, a crime victim or a suspect.

In essence, the only real difference between genetic genealogy searching, parent searches and victim/suspect searches is motivation. The underlying technique is exactly the same with only a few details that differ based on the goal.

You can read about the process used to identify the Golden State Killer here, and just a few days later, a second case, the Cook/Van Cuylenborg double homicide cold case in Snohomish County, Washington was solved utilizing the following family tree of the suspect whose DNA was utilized and matched the blue and pink cousins.

Provided by the Snohomish County Sheriff

A genealogist discovering those same matches, of course, would be focused on the common ancestors, not contemporary people or generations.

To identify present day individuals, meaning parents, victims or suspects, the researcher identifies the common ancestor and works their way forward in time. The genealogist, on the other hands, is focused on working backwards in time.

All three types of processes, genealogical, parent identification and law enforcement depend on identifying cousins that lead us to common ancestors.

At that point, the only question is whether we continue working backwards (genealogically) or begin working forwards in time from the common ancestors for either parent identification or law enforcement.

Given that the suspect’s or victim’s name or identifying information is not known, their DNA alone, in combination with the DNA of their matches can identify them uniquely (unless they are an identical twin,) or closely enough that targeted testing or non-genetic information will confirm the identification.

Sometimes, people newly testing discover that a parent, sibling or half sibling genetic match is just waiting for them and absolutely no analysis is necessary. You can read about the discovery of the identity of my brother’s biological family here and here.

Therefore, we cannot represent to Uncle Henry, especially when discussing autosomal DNA testing, that he can test and remain anonymous. He can’t. If there is a family secret, known or unknown to Uncle Henry, it’s likely to be exposed utilizing autosomal DNA and may be exposed utilizing either Y or mitochondrial DNA testing.

For the genealogist, this may cause Pavlovian drooling, but Uncle Henry may not be nearly so enthralled.

In Summary

Genealogical methods developed to identify currently living individuals has obsoleted the concept of genetic anonymity. You can see in the pedigree chart example below how the same match, in yellow, can lead to solving any of the three different scenarios we’ve discussed.

Click to enlarge any graphic

If the tester is Uncle Henry, you might discover that his parents weren’t his parents. You also might discover who his real parents were, when your intention was only to confirm your common great-grandparents. So much for that idea.

A match between Henry and a second cousin, in our example above, can also identify someone involved in a law enforcement situation – although today those very few and far between. Testing for law enforcement purposes is prohibited according to the terms and conditions of all 4 major testing vendors; Ancestry, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage.

Currently law enforcement kits to identify either victims or suspects can be uploaded at GedMatch but only for violent crimes identified as either homicide or sexual assault, per their terms and conditions.

Furthermore, both 23andMe and Ancestry who previously reserved the right to anonymize your genetic information and sell or otherwise utilize that information in aggregated format no longer can do so under the new GDPR legislation without your specific consent. GDPR, while a huge pain in the behind for other reasons has returned the control of the consumer’s DNA to the consumer in these cases.

The loss of anonymity is the inevitable result of this industry maturing. That’s good news for genetic genealogy. It means we now have lots of matches – sometimes more than we can keep up with!

Because of those matches, we know that if we test our DNA, or that of a family member, our DNA plus the common DNA shared with many of our relatives is enough to identify us, or them. That’s not news to genealogists, but it might be to Uncle Henry, so don’t tell him that he can be anonymous anymore.

You can pseudonymize accounts to some extent by masking Uncle Henry’s name or using your name. Managing accounts for the same reasons of convenience that you always did is just fine! We just need to explain the current privacy situation to Uncle Henry when asking permission to test or to upload his raw data file to GedMatch (or anyplace else,) because ultimately, Uncle Henry’s DNA leads to Uncle Henry, no matter whose name is on the account.

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